February 5, 2009
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Latest Homebuyer Tax Credit Voted
by Senate is The Real Thing, Says NAHB
By Anuradha Kher, Online News
Editor
Washington, D.C.--The Senate voted yesterday to expand the
economic stimulus package with a tax credit for homebuyers
of up to $15,000. The measure, introduced by Sen. Johnny
Isakson, a Republican from Georgia, is expected to add as
much as $18.5 billion to the already-massive stimulus
package.
This tax credit, unlike others proposed previously, is a
real tax credit, according to the National Association of
Homebuilders (NAHB), as long as it is claimed within two
years. There is no automatic recapture of this money unless
the buyer sells the property within two years of purchasing
it. NAHB also confirms that there are no qualifying criteria
for receiving the credit and any homebuyer is eligible for
it, whether he or she is buying a single-family or
multifamily property.
The NAHB had called on Congress last year to create a
temporary home buyer tax credit along with other important
tax measures to boost the faltering housing market and
economy.
“The biggest bang for the buck most likely would be provided
by a temporary home buyer tax credit,” NAHB Chief Economist
David Seiders had told the Senate Finance Committee. “Tax
credits for the purchase of a home are a means of
eliminating excess inventory, relieving some of the pressure
on falling housing prices and ending the
waiting-on-the-sideline strategy some potential buyers have
adopted in response to overly negative media stories
concerning the future of the housing market.”
The association continues to lobby in favor of a homebuyer
tax credit.
Meanwhile, Sheila Crowley, president of the National Low
Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), is urging Congress to
re-examine its spending plans in the Economic Recovery Act.
“If the country can afford to subsidize over a million
families no matter what their income to buy new houses,
surely we can afford to prevent a huge increase in the
number of people who lose their homes altogether and become
homeless,” she said in a statement.
The Senate has not included any funding in the bill that
will produce a single new unit of housing that is affordable
to the poorest families in the country. The Senate bill does
not capitalize the National Housing Trust Fund to build and
rehabilitate rental homes that are affordable to low wage
workers, the unemployed, the disabled and the elderly. Nor
does the Senate bill provide funding for housing vouchers
that would help low-income families afford to rent existing
housing in the market.
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