Cleveland Real Estate News

Signed into law a few hours ago, there are now more financial incentives to keep up (or start) your home search, if this is a good time for you personally, to buy.  Having good housing inventory to choose from is important too.  To all who may have wanted to put their homes up for sale but figured the pool of buyers might have shrunk, there is good reason to believe it just increased exponentially.  Because now it’s also available to people who own homes but feel it’s time to get a new place to live.

Highlights:

1.  You have to purchase a home to live in (owner occupied).  This means you can buy an investment property, but you also have to live there along with your tenants.

2. If you are a first time buyer, your credit is now available to you until April of 2010.  Your tax credit is still $8000. You must not have owned a home for the past three years to qualify.

3. If you own a home but want a different one, you may qualify for a $6500 tax credit, also available through April 30th).  And you must have owned your home for 5 years (they say five of the last 8 yrs).  In reality, and in this market, buying a home when you will be selling one becomes a bit easier if you have owned it for at least 5 years…this provision makes sense to me.

4. There are income limits (in effect as of today). If you are single, you can earn up to $125,000 (it WAS $75,000).  If married, the income level goes up now to $225,000.

5.   They had some issues with fraud (IRS issues). No surprise since money was involved. Now you must attach proof of purchase (title?) to your tax returns in order to get your credit (does this mean they did not require it before? I don’t know.)

Technically, the ‘end’ date is a bit different than the last credit.  Last time you had to own your home by Nov 30th.  Period.  Now they are allowing you to have it under contract by April 30th and you must take possession by July of 2010.

Hope this helps, any other questions, please feel free to email me or call me at 216-235-3719.    Peace Out – 3C