As this week's cover story on housing concludes, the single-family house--that symbol of the old American Dream--is becoming dearer and dearer to buy. No one knows that better than our correspondents, most of whom are transferred from one bureau to another on an average of every three years. Thus they are almost continually in the escalating housing market and find it easy to empathize with other frustrated homeseekers.

"Living through the same horrors as the people I was interviewing, I had no problem establishing a rapport," says Correspondent Richard Woodbury, who had just been reassigned from Chicago to Miami and was looking for housing of his own in Florida. "Like survivors of some shipwreck, we compared hard-luck stories and exorbitant prices. Buyers were eager to pour out their tales." Woodbury's assignment in the end proved a blessing. A source gave him a tip that led him to an apartment overlooking Biscayne Bay. Says Woodbury: "Ideal, and the price, $50 under my budget. I move in this weekend."

Some of the most distressing stories about housing, both from our correspondents and their sources, come from California. Correspondent Joseph Kane, just transferred from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, made three forays to the West Coast before finding a house. Says he: "Houses for $137,000--no pool--were shown Sunday afternoon and gone Sunday night in middle-class neighborhoods such as Woodland Hills." Kane had been forewarned of the situation by a highly placed source. Before leaving Washington, he had stopped by the White House to say goodbye to the ex-Georgia Governor, whom he had covered during an earlier stint in our Atlanta bureau. "So you are moving to Los Ange les," said the President. "Jerry Brown tells me housing prices are going up 1.8% a month out there now. Arthur Burns says there is going to be some air let out of that bubble."

A bubble of another sort burst for Correspondent Patricia Delaney when she revisited her former Beverly Hills condominium. Delaney was still riding high over the $10,000 profit she had made 18 months earlier, when she sold the condominium after being reassigned to Chicago. But, says Delaney, "my joy turned to dismay after seeing my old neighborhood. My condominium was for sale again--at $55,000 more than my 1976 selling price."

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