A special “Thank You!” to Julie Sandlin of First American Title for sending this along this morning.
 
Frequently Asked Questions:
First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit of $8,000
 
1. Who is eligible to claim the tax credit?
First-time home buyers purchasing any kind of home-new or resale-are eligible for the tax credit. To qualify for the tax credit, a [...]

 Just thought I’d pass along the link to the President’s plan to helping homeowners stay in their home.
FinancialStability.gov
There are lots of fact sheets, press releases, and self-assessment tools.
Personally, I think it’s great that our current administration is making efforts to not only keep people in their homes but to make it more manageable for families [...]

A lot has happened since I’ve sent my last newsletter, and the majority has been very good.  Especially since the first of the year there have been some very encouraging signs of recovery.  But the economic hole we are in began being dug 20 years ago, when credit of all types became much more readily [...]

For anyone who has used a 12 Step program to overcome anything, this will sound familiar.  Being in the throes of an economic crisis, recovery should be on our collective mind.  It seems the media is flailing around, trying to point a finger at one single cause or source of our current crisis, but honestly, [...]

And maybe it still is.
NAR released numbers today that state exsisting home sales in September were the highest increase, month over month, since 2003.  Woohoo!, right?  Maybe not.  Nationally, home prices are still falling.  Even the eternally optimistic NAR econ-front man, Lawrence Yun, is cautious.  MSNBC reported Mr. Yun as offering the following: “housing may [...]

I knew there were more than, say, a million reasons why I <3 Portland.  And why you should leave California to live in Portland. Now we have just one more…. Yesterday Forbes ranked Portland as the 4th best place to ride out the recession.  You can read the full article here. 
Reasons being:
Underwater homes: 11%    (foreclosures, homes without equity)
Median home [...]

What a week, eh?  Talk about riding a rollercoaster!  More banks and companies failing, more local builders (Renaissance) “reorganizing debt”, candidates sparring, government officials looking to point the finger, but more importantly, more and more uncertainty in the housing market both nationally and locally.  I have a whole file drawer full of potential buyers right [...]

Hope Forbes doesn’t mind that I borrowed the slide from their totally hawt slideshow, that ranks Portland #4 as an area “Where Home Prices are Most Likely to Rise”.  See the slideshow here, and read the full article here.  They are saying by the year 2010.  I’m crossing my fingers but not holding my breath.  [...]

Thank you to Laurie SantaMaria, Stewart Title, for sending this tidbit in an email this morning.

Homesale exclusion rules tightened

Most homeowners are aware of the homesale exclusion, a provision of the
tax laws which provides that homeowners who sell their principal residence
typically don’t need to pay taxes on as much as $500,000 of their gain if
they meet certain conditions. [...]