Tax credit for home purchase could rise

Tax credit for home purchase could rise
USA Today

Lawmakers and businesses are calling for expansion of a tax credit for first-time home buyers that has helped spark home sales in an otherwise dismal real estate market.

With the tax credit scheduled to expire in fall, some business groups say the amount of the credit, now capped at $8,000, should be raised to $15,000 and applied to anyone who buys a home.

Housing Eludes Recovery as Job Losses, Foreclosures Climb
Bloomberg.com

Unemployment and consumer debt are putting home ownership beyond the reach of would-be buyers even as U.S. home prices reset to 2003 levels, according to a report today by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

“Clear signs of a recovery have yet to emerge, and job losses and the steady stream of foreclosures are keeping many markets under pressure,” researchers for the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based center wrote. “Sales of both new and existing homes continued to struggle to find a bottom.”

Changes Urged to Rules on Condo Loans
The Wall Street Journal

Two Democratic lawmakers are calling on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to relax recently tightened standards for mortgages on new condominiums, saying they could threaten the viability of some developments and slow the housing-market recovery.

In March, Fannie Mae said it would no longer guarantee mortgages on condos in buildings where fewer than 70% of the units have been sold, up from 51%. Fannie Mae also won't purchase mortgages in buildings where 15% of owners are delinquent on condo association dues or where one owner has more than 10% of units, which the firm sees as signals that a building could run into financial trouble. Freddie Mac will implement similar policies next month.

Land Deals Help Builders Stay Alive
The Wall Street Journal

In Indio, a small city east of Los Angeles, the supply of foreclosed houses for sale is plentiful. Even so, work crews are finishing a batch of new homes for Lennar Corp.

While the recession wiped out many small builders, mortgage lenders and homeowners, the nation's biggest builders have hung on, in part through favorable land deals, loan agreements and tax strategies.

Kanjorski: Real estate key to recovery
Inman News

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski said he used to be considered the "gloom and doom guy" on the House Financial Services Committee for opining about worst-case economic scenarios.

Now, given the dramatic turn of events that has led to what the Pennsylvania Democrat describes as "the most important storm that's come our way in three quarters of a century," he quipped, "I'm no longer thought of as a gloom-and-doom man but as a prophet."