Housing Prices Drop for the 57th Consecutive Month...

Zillow announced last week that home values have fallen for a 57th straight month. This is clearly not good news for anyone but, it has hit beneficiaries of the $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers particularly hard. The Wall Street Journal, announced that the first time home buyers (that purchased as a result of the Obama tax credits) have “lost twice as much to falling house prices as they gained from the incentive”. The initiative began as an incentive for first-time buyers, then was expanded to include a $6,500 credit for existing homeowners who made a new purchase. The program ran from January 2009 until September of 2010 and, arguably artificially and temporarily improved the housing market at the cost of a faster recovery. Typical homes bought during that period have lost about $20,000 in value since that time.
To make matters worse, the IRS recently reported that it paid $26 billion in home buyer credits during the running time of the program. However, it believes that “at least $513 million went to fraudulent claims. Common incidences of fraud included claimants that did not buy houses, claimants that filed twice and individuals who were underage or incarcerated

Hypocrasy in the Obama Real Estate Positions

I have received many comments from real estate agents that lack of a tax credit is hurting the current real estate market. Said another way, the tax credits (artifically) stimulated the markets and now that tax credits are no longer available, the real estate markets are challenging at best.

Here is the hypocrasy in the the Obama administration policies on real estate: they induced tens of thousands of families to purchase real estate by incentivizing them with a federal tax credit. Now they want to eliminate the mortgage interest deduction on taxes. Lure them in with tax incentives and then take the incentives and much more away with significantly higher tax burdens if/when the mortgage interest deduction is eliminated. Why does no one seem to notice that this administration has no clue about business, real estate and pretty much anything?? They are completely detached from reality...