Extending The Popular Tax Credit For First Time Homebuyers - 11/1/2009

Senators have agreed to extend the popular tax credit for first-time homebuyers and to offer a reduced credit to some repeat buyers. The United States commerce department says new home sales dropped to three-point-six percent in September, and some housing industry representatives blame the decline on sales on the uncertainty of the duration of the tax credit. The tax credit provides up to 8 thousand dollars to first-time home buyers but is set to expire at the end of November. Lawmakers have also agreed to offer a reduced credit of up to 65 hundred dollars to repeat buyers who have owned their current homes for at least 5 years. Some representatives believe the intentions are good behind extending the credit, but they don't trust how the federal government is running the program. Reports of minors and other non-qualifiers slipping through the cracks is why some law makers are against the government handling the housing credit. Others say the program is legitimate because it goes through the lender before it goes through the government. According to the national association of realtors, about one-point four million first-time homebuyers have qualified for the credit through August and they estimate 350 thousand of the buyers would not have purchased their homes without the credit.