Due to rising mortgage rates and an under performing market, special interest groups have begun to exhort lawmakers to expand one of the year’s more appealing home-buying incentives. The National Association of Home Builders along with the Business Roundtable, “an association of chief executives,” have prompted lawmakers to increase the first-time homebuyer tax credit by $7,000 and expand the offer to all homebuyers. The group would also like to see the tax credit’s December 1 deadline pushed back.

Housing professionals argue that creating more of an incentive for “trade-up” buyers, or non-first-time homebuyers, would create significantly more demand in the marketplace: Read the rest of this entry »

“Supply and demand” is perhaps the most generic, even cliche, law of economics. Yet, the seemingly-oversimplified phrase is the functional foundation of the housing market. The healthy dichotomy of seller and buyer is what greases the housing market. Unfortunately there are several monkey wrenches jamming the system.

When the housing market self destructed in 2006, supply surged and demand was vanquished. There are at least 10 separate factors to monitor which will dictate when the housing market can reinvent itself.

Read the rest of this entry »

Between those oh-so-low mortgage rates and the decline in housing prices, that timeless real-estate slogan is true: there may never be a better time to buy a home than right now. However, if you’re looking to buy a home (or even an automobile), you shouldn’t shop based just on the monthly payment. It’s the maintenance costs that can, well, cost you.

The experts say borrowers should allocate at least one percent of the home’s total value each year for maintenance. Some suggest even budgeting up to four percent:

Read the rest of this entry »

The New York times called lawmakers’ ability to reduce the size of the stimulus package a defiance of “Washington’s peculiar laws of physics.”

Don’t be too proud.

Read the rest of this entry »