$6,500 Tax Credit For Repeat Homebuyers! $8,000 Credit for 1st Time Buyers Will be Extended!

There's a lot of buzz that the first time home buyer credit of $8,000 may be extended. So far it's passed the Senate and now must pass through the House.

Some are saying it's helped the economy, some are saying it hasn't. I specialize in working with first time home buyers, and I can definitely say that business picked up for me personally all summer and this fall.

I found this article online that spells out who the repeat homebuyer credit may work for. Basically, a repeat home owner would need to have owned their existing home for five years in order to qualify.

http://www.christianpf.com/6500-home-buyer-tax-credit-extended/

I see several pros and cons to extending this credit for repeat homebuyers.

Pros:

• May lessen the blow of the inevitable loss many homeowners are facing when selling
• Can help replenish down payment current homeowners are saving to trade up whereas repeat homeowners used to rely the proceeds from the sale of their homes to buy the next home
• Can help replenish an Emergency Fund for the repeat homeowner so that if the unexpected happens, they haven't depleted their resources to buy the next home
• Stimulates the housing economy
• With more competition for homes, hopefully values will stop falling, start to go up a little

Cons:

• Increases deficit
• Perhaps a repayable tax credit that wouldn't burden our tax payers would have the same impact?

What do you think?

Edit:

The Senate voted Thursday, November 5th to pass the legislation!