Don’t Wait on Tax Credit
By Robert Freedman, Senior Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
A handful of bills to extend and increase the First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit are under consideration in Congress, but if you have clients who are holding out in anticipation of one of these bills passing, you might want to encourage them not to wait. The likelihood of any of these bills getting enacted this year is highly uncertain.
That’s the message I’m getting from NAR analysts. The issue isn’t the tax credit itself. From everything we’re seeing, the credit enjoys broad bipartisan support and, as our chief economist Lawrence Yun has said, the credit is a bargain when it comes to economic stimulus. You get a lot of bang for the buck, and I think it’s safe to say that a lot of lawmakers realize that. Certainly Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) does. He’s the lead sponsor of a bill to extend and increase the credit, and he’s been a champion on what the credit can do for the economy.
The problem, rather, is far more prosaic. Read more