Well, fear not, real estate posts are coming back to Home In Babylon. Really really!
By the way, I may not be looking for a house any more, but I’m still very interested in reading, writing and talking about housing, real estate and the market in general. If anyone out there is still on the hunt for a house, please leave a comment and let us know what you’re seeing. Things are pretty dead now, but I expect there will be a bit of an upswing right before the $8,000 home buyer credit finally ends in April.
If you’re a newcomer, there are tons of posts about Babylon Village real estate in the archives. Click on that “Older Posts” down that the bottom of the page or try one of the categories or tags on the right-hand side of the page.
As for me, I have a couple posts in the hopper. The first part of sold homes for September will be up later in the day or tonight. And once we close, Debra and I will be documenting renovation and decorating, for those of you who are still mourning the loss of HGTV.
You really think that’s going away? Several million in NAR lobbying dollars begs to differ. Not to mention that government spending, no matter how ineffective or ill-advised, has a quite poor track record of ever going away. That government cheese is now quite comfortably Forever On the Installment Plan™.
I would feel quite confident putting up $8,000 to the first applicant would have qualified for the bonanza but for its expiration if it is not continued in at least some form – and know that money would never be spent.
I’d be willing to place a small wager that the home-buyer tax credit isn’t going to be renewed once it expires in April, at least not like anything in its current form.
Let’s make it symbolic, yet friendly: $8.00.
The current free cheese is $8,000 to virgins, $6,500 to *ahem* repeat offenders. It applies to contracts signed by 30 Apr 2010 if closed by 30 June 2010.
There are any number of pretexts to an extension – its expiration would ‘kill’ a supposed fledgling housing recovery (no mention that there is always a ‘recovery’ of sorts in spring home sales even in the worst of years – just as sure as the rain falls and the flowers bloom). It could be called ‘phasing out’ the credit to avoid the shock of abruptly ending it. In any case, I surely don’t think that someone closing on a house on July 1, 2010 has much to worry about.
I submit that changes to amount of the subsidy (reducing by up to 50%), qualiification standards (first-time or not; income levels; price of home purchased) or the method of delivering the subsidy (tax credit v. deduction, rebate, one-time v. amortized) are not substantial changes. The thrust of the program is for the federal government to salve to ‘losses’ suffered by collapsing home prices, with the buyers merely as intermediaries.
I confess my motive somewhat self-serving to keep this blog going strong at least through April. 😉