Buy a Home with a $15,000 Tax Credit?
October 8, 2009 by Miranda Marquit
Filed under Finance
Right now, lawmakers are concerned about what happens when the first time home buyer tax credit expires. Many worry that the housing market will take another nosedive, since the first time home buyer tax credit has done a lot to help boost home sales since the beginning of the year. However, how the program should be extended is garnering a lot of talk. While some Senators merely want to extend the program, Johnny Isakson wants to extend it and expand it to include a $15,000 tax credit for every home buyer.
Would you buy a home if you could get a $15,000 tax credit?
I think I would. If my husband gets a job at the university when he’s done with his Ph.D., and it looks like we’re going to be here for another seven to 10 years, we’re thinking that we’ll buy a different house here in town — a house closer to work and school. And we would probably do it next year. Which is convenient, if Isakson manages to get enough support for his $15,000 tax credit idea.
However, we wouldn’t just buy the house for the sake of a $15,000 tax credit. We would plan ahead of time, and begin figuring out what we would need to do to afford a different house, in a part of time that is “in demand.” Some things that can be done now to prepare to buy a home include:
- Saving up for a down payment.
- Getting a realistic view of how much we can afford.
- Shopping around for a good real estate agent to help us sell our current home.
- Considering where we would get our home loan.
- Making sure that we keep our credit score in good shape.
In the end, a $15,000 tax credit would be a great thing for buying a home, especially if they let it happen like the $8,000 tax credit that can be used immediately as a down payment.
What about you? Would you buy a home next year if there’s a $15,000 tax credit involved?
Image source: BrendelSignature via Wikimedia Commons
i would DEFINITELY buy a house if they increase it to the 15,0000
I absolutely would buy a house if the credit were extended to $15,000 and we were allowed to use it as the down payment. I think the lack of down payment assistance is keeping a lot of qualified buyers out of the market now.
Sooner or later we have to return to a real economy, not a propped up economy. I didn’t buy a car when cash for clunkers was around because I’m years away from needing a new car and didn’t want the debt. Would I have liked to have $15K from the taxpayers when I was buying my first house? Sure, I guess, though it seems a bit unfair. But that option wasn’t around at the time, even though interest rates were at 10% and the economy was in a recession. This something for nothing stuff can’t go on forever. Better get prepared to do things the old fashioned way.