New Tax Benefit....What Does it Mean for First Time Home Buyer

There is a lot of talk today about the new first time buyer tax credit...but is it really a credit? Nope...it's a loan! Granted it's at 0% interest, but it's still a loan. Please see more information on this below:

How the New First-Time Buyer Tax Credit Works Under the new housing bill, home buyers who have not owned a home in the last three years will be eligible for a tax credit equal to 10 percent of the property up to a maximum of $7,500.Here’s how it works:
The credit is $3,750 for married couples filing separately. Unmarried people who jointly purchase a home will be able to divide the $7,500 credit.
This program is actually a loan, which home buyers must repay over 15 years at zero percent interest beginning in the second year after they purchase the home. A home buyer who qualified for the whole credit would pay $500 for 15 years or about $41.67 per month.
The credit applies only to homes purchased on or after April 9, 2008, and before July 1, 2009.
High-income home buyers don’t qualify: Eligibility begins phasing out for single filers with adjusted income of more than $75,000 and $150,000 for joint filers. It completely phases out at $95,000 for singles and $170,000 for married couples filing jointly.Source: The Washington Post, Michelle Singletary (07/03/08)

For more information on this and other programs for real estate purchasing please visit www.InvestSmarter.com or www.Richmond-Kentucky-Real-Estate.com

Housing Prices Drop in Major Citites

We are all constantly wondering what is really happening in the real estate market. We keep asking where is the bottom? Are we there? Are we getting close? Noone really knows and what's interesting and as we have discussed on www.InvestSmarter.com is that the bottom is a relative term. A bank has a different bottom than an individual. Everyone's motiviation is also different. The bottom line is what is actually going on in the market? Take a look below at what is happening in a few markets and it's an interesting turn of events. Luckily Richmond Kentucky Real Estate didn't make the list!


Housing Inventories Fall in Major Cities The supply of homes dipped 2.4 percent in a year-over-year change in 12 of 18 cities where ZipRealty Inc. does business, the brokerage says. The data covers listings of single-family homes, condos, and town houses for sale on local multiple-listing services. This is the first decline since the firm began keeping tabs in mid-2006.

The data doesn’t include New York City, but Miller Samuel Inc., an appraisal firm, says the city’s inventory was up 31 percent compared to June of 2007 because Wall Street firms have cut jobs.

Cities and their percentage of iventory decline:
Boston: -10%
Dallas: -10.6%
Houston: -2.4%
Las Vegas: -18.5%
Los Angeles: -7.4%
Minneapolis: -4.8%
Orange County, Calif.: -15%
Orlando: -3.1%
Phoenix: -2.6%
Sacramento: -22.4%
San Diego: -6.7%
Tampa, Fla.: -7%

Source: The Wall Street Journal, James R. Hagerty (07/10/2008)

Luckily we are not seeing much in the Richmond Kentucky Real Estate market and additionally the Richmond Kentucky Commercial Real Estate market continues to boom and be a great success!

Stay tuned and bookmark our pages to find out more exciting information surrounding the Richmond Kentucky Real Estate area!

Don't Always Trust Online Information

In an ever changing market new information and current information is always a necessity. However, automated systems like the article below mentions, aren't always the best source. There are certain dynamics that you just don't see. That being said, we just recently found a home that was recorded as a sale of $630,000 with the property appraiser, but in the MLS system it was $850,000. This is a big spread! The reason is that one of the family members bought the house from the estate. So they forgave part of their profit by purchasing the home. So two different values that an automated system would not provide. That's why venues like www.InvestSmarter.com and keeping up with Real Estate Agents and Brokers that stay on top of things is important. Please read more below:

Daily Real Estate News June 24, 2008

Home-Value Web Sites Miss the Mark

Online home-value sites offer some useful tools, but their estimates are often wrong."The percentage of error on these estimates is still very large," says Delores Conway, director of the Casden Forecast at the University of Southern California Lusk Center for Real Estate. If there are not many comparable sales in one area, for example, she says, "the estimates will have huge errors in them."Zillow.com and Cyberhomes.com rely on computer-generated automated models to estimate values. The models help compensate for the fact that many neighborhoods don’t have enough sales to generate accurate values based on experience. But these computer models don’t reflect home condition, improvements and may not even accurately convey property descriptions.Marty Frame, general manager of Cyberhomes.com, says the data on the site is best used as a way to form an overall impression of a neighborhood."Our goal is to provide you all this information and let you cherry-pick the things that are most interesting to you," Frame says. "You're going to look at an estimate and say, "that makes sense' or 'that doesn't make any sense."'Source: The Associated Press (06/23/2008)

For more information on the Richmond Kentucky Real Estate market please visit www.Richmond-Kentucky-Real-Estate.com to see what's going on.