About Peoria County, IL

We have a great training calendar set-up for January! Here is a link to the calendar:

Click Here ---> January Training Calendar

Take a look and let me know if you have a question or if you would like more information about a training.

Yours in Success,

Brian Rule

Here is some information to definitely talk to your tax professional about.

To get the credit, the homebuyer cannot have owned a home in the previous three years. The home must be a principal residence and purchased between April 9, 2008 and July 1, 2009.

The credit is equal to 10 percent of the purchase price, up to $7,500. Single taxpayers with modified adjusted gross income up to $75,000 and couples with MAGI up to $150,000 will qualify for full credit. Singles with MAGI up to $95,000 and couples with MAGI up to $170,000 will get a reduced amount. Those with higher incomes don't qualify.

If the amount of tax a homebuyer owes is less than the amount of the credit, they get to keep the difference in the form of an IRS refund.

The homebuyer must begin to repay the credit in two years in increments of about $500 a year over a 15-year period for those who received the full credit

Homebuyers who sell their home before the credit is repaid must pay off the loan with any profits. If they sell the home at a loss, the loan is forgiven.

Rollback pricing may be what makes Walmart great, but it is not good for real estate. Pricing your home too high to begin with is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. After doing this, you spend the rest of your time chasing the market and praying you catch it. If you price too high, you are appealing to the wrong buyer who thinks your home lacks the amenities for the price and the right buyer thinks your home is to expensive. A common misconception is that you need to leave room for negotiation. If your home is priced properly the negotiation gap will be minimized.

I am surprised time and time again how difficult it can be sometimes to convince buyers to get a professional home inspection. For a few hundred dollars, you have a trained professional come in and inspect from top to bottom what could be the largest investment of your life. They check for items that could potentially cost you thousands of dollars to repair once the home is yours and prevent you from inheriting that problem.

One of the very first steps you should take in the home buying process is getting your pre-approval letter from a lender. Imagine, you are looking at homes and you see the one, it's priced beautifully, has everything you could ever want, and it is way better than anything else on the market. Then imagine, you are not the only buyer in the world and while you are scrambling at the last minute to get the pre-approval letter so you can put in an offer on the home of your dreams(99.9% of sellers will not entertain offers without a pre-approval), another buyer(with a pre-approval) makes an offer and gets the home for less than you would have been willing to pay. Could that home have been yours? Yep, if you had gotten your pre-approval in advance it more than likely would have been.