Yeah, I’ll say it: Don’t Extend the $8,000 Tax Credit
Just because I’m a Realtor®, does not mean that I am willing to go along with everything the State or National Associations of Realtors says.
Typically, in Arizona, they have attempted to undermine rights residential users of solar energy. Nationally, they don’t typically support environmental laws that I support.
But I am ready to step out and say that we should not extend the $8,000 tax credit past the November 30th deadline. This is sacrilegious to some. Aren’t I undermining my own business? Aren’t I preventing people from buying houses?
Well, my personal business is not as important as the fate of the country. The program has cost the country $15 billion. The National Association of Realtors wants to increase the credit to $15,000 and remove the first time home buyer restriction. It will cost the general fund between $50 and $100 billion. And, over time, we will find all kinds of loopholes, so that will only grow.
We are looking at a bankruptcy of Medicare and Social Security on the horizon, and we are supposed to expand this program? Unacceptable.
As for preventing people from buying houses, I simply don’t accept that the market will dry up. We have record low home prices in America. The market will do better as the rest of the economy recovers. Further, banks still have many, many foreclosed homes that they have not released into the market (over 40,000 in Arizona). While we don’t want them to release them all at once, a steady stream of homes on the market can keep prices down.
For me, it is a simple equation: we needed the boost in the housing market, but it is not worth creating a permanent new hand-out when the result will just add to our staggering deficit and debt.
Now, here is another idea for you to ponder. It might be high time that we eliminate the tax deduction on the interest on your home. Or, at least we need to replace it with something that is more geared toward new home ownership. Now, that is sacrilege! I’m trying to find the article in my stack of old magazines. It was either in the Atlantic Monthly or the Economist, but this is not a new argument.
It goes like this: the interest deduction encourages people to buy houses that are 
unrealistically large for their income, it encourages sprawl, it is a huge drain on our general fund when we can’t afford it and it is used by people for second homes. Heck, my parents take an interest deduction on their stinkin’ RV because it is a second home!
Really? You gotta squint really hard and look sideways to call an RV a second home.
Regardless, if the goal is to get first time home buyers in to a home so that they can become stable, why give a credit for a second home? Why not offer a one-time $15,000 tax credit for your first home. After that, you are on your own.
I’ll find that article and link to it. This it a very touchy topic, so I’d love to see some debate on it.
As for this topic, check out a very good article on the issue, here.
Well said. It’s refreshing to see someone saying what’s right even if it doesn’t directly benefit them (although I think the case could be made that everyone, including realtors and the people who take advantage of the credit, are hurt tremendously in the long run by extending these programs). This blog just gets better and better.
I would have to agree with you assessment generally. It would seem that if the purpose of the tax credit was to speed up the buying of foreclosed or otherwise homes for sale that we need to control the speed at which we are consuming available homes. As housing markets begin to recover, coupled with an extension or augmentation of the tax credit program, more and more buyers will make their way into the market for housing. While this may be an intended consequence of the program, the rate at which people enter into the market is a very precarious number. If for instance we enter into a situation where buyers are given an incentive to such a degree to buy homes, in this example the tax credit continuing to exist or increase, that cost of the home becomes a secondary consideration to the purchase of the home, and a scenario similar to housing boom and bubble could potentially develop. In this scenario buyers would primarily be concerned with the temporary increase in income and not with long term consequences incurred from the purchase of the home.
A report by the Brookings institute on the first proposed change to the tax credit program, illuminates this point; that if we extend this short term credit to middle class home buyers buy way of a grant program, one potential unintended consequence will be the increase in housing prices. Which could in turn have the effect of artificially inflating the price’s of housing across most markets.
And of course, housing prices getting out of control was a major issue that contributed to the housing bubble and burst that has us in troubled markets currently.
Good points, Will.
Thanks for the kudos, Dave.
I think that if you had just a grant for tax deduction for first time home buyers only, then there would not be an upward pressure. Only a portion of the market is first time home buyers. The rest could not get the grant and that would keep prices pushed downward.
I have to admit that I was kind of looking forward to the credit but I do see your point. However, does any of it really matter when banks are making it impossible for people to buy homes that they can actually afford? 3 years ago they were handing out ridiculous loans like candy and now that people can actually afford them they don’t want to give them out…..