Amid the economic upheaval, there is good news for first-time home buyers – a tax credit of up to $7,500.  Even better – the definition of first-time home buyers includes those who have not owned a principal residence in the three year period prior to purchasing a qualifying home.
The tax credit, established through the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, is available only to first-time home buyers and only for homes purchased on or before April 9, 2008 and before July 1, 2009.  Any home that will be used as a principal residence qualifies, including single family detached homes, townhomes, condominiums, mobile homes, and houseboats.  New construction is also eligible, as long as possession or occupancy occurs within the parameters defined by the law.
For the purposes of this law, a first-time home buyer is defined as someone who has not owned a principal residence during the three years prior to the purchase of the qualified property.  For married taxpayers, neither individual may have owned a principal residence in the previous years.  A buyer will not be disqualified from the tax credit if they own a vacation home or rental property not used as their principal residence.
Single taxpayers with incomes up to $75,000 and married couples with incomes up to $150,000 qualify for the full tax credit.  Eligibility is determined based on modified adjusted gross income.  Partial credit may be available for those with higher incomes; however, individuals with a modified adjusted gross income exceeding $95,000, (or $170,000 for married couples filing jointly), will be ineligible for the tax credit.
The tax credit is equal to 10% of the qualified home purchase price, but is capped at $7,500; for homes purchased for less than $75,000, the credit will be 10% of the purchase price.
There are no special forms to fill out and no pre-approval necessary.  The credit is easily claimed on the federal income tax return.  Plus, the credit can be claimed on the 2008 return for a home purchased in 2009.  If the tax credit exceeds the taxpayer’s outstanding liability for the year, the taxpayer will receive a check from the government.
The credit is like an interest-free loan, and it must be repaid to the government over a 15-year period.  Payments do not have to begin until two years after the credit is claimed.  If the home is sold before the credit is repaid, the outstanding amount will be paid from profits on the sale.  If there is insufficient profit to repay the credit, the remaining amount will be forgiven.
For first-time home buyers (those who are truly new to the market and those who have not owned a principal residence in at least three years), this tax credit can make it easier to transition into home ownership.  Combined with housing inventories increasing, prices decreasing, and mortgage rates dropping even lower, this tax credit may just make the difference in making home ownership a reality.

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In today's overheated housing market, lenders are making it easier and easier to get a mortgage. For example, some lenders have lowered the credit score needed to qualify for a mortgage. Others have increased the debt load that borrowers can carry or have made it easier for borrowers to get loans while providing little documentation. In some cases, lenders have even made it easier for people to borrow money to buy investment properties.
There are also many kinds of mortgages available today that were never available before. There are interest only mortgages, adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) for 3,5 or 10 years and adjustable rate mortgages with balloon payments at the end of a five or ten year period.
There are even adjustable rate mortgages that have introductory rates as low as 1% and that give borrowers multiple payment options.
Lenders also used to loan only 80 percent of a home's value, meaning that the borrower had to come up with 20 percent as a down payment. So, if you wanted to buy a home valued at $150,000, you had to put down at least $30,000. This might have been difficult, but at least you started out with $30,000 in equity in your home.
This standard was then lowered to ten percent, meaning you needed only $15,000 to buy that $150,000 home.
Today, it's possible to find mortgage brokers who will lend 100 percent of the value of a house or even more than 100 percent.
This can be good news for families who, until now, might not have been able to afford a $10,000 or $20,000 down payment. But you need to be careful of. Some unscrupulous lenders may try to sell you a mortgage you can't really afford. Let's say your monthly take home pay (after taxes and other deductions) is $4,000. You find a house for $150,000 and a mortgage broker willing to lend 100% or the full $150,000. A 30-year fixed FHA loan (not including taxes and insurance) will have a monthly payment of about $851.00. The total monthly payment PITI (with taxes and insurance) would most likely be close to $1,000.
A good rule of thumb is that your cost of housing should not exceed 20 percent of your net monthly take home pay (after taxes and other deductions). This means that for a $1,000 monthly mortgage payment, your net monthly income should be at least $5,000. If your income were only $4,000 a month, you would be spending about 25% of your income on housing alone.
Before you make this kind of commitment, you should take a long, hard look at your other commitments, such as car payments, tuition, and insurance to make sure you can cover them as well as your normal living expenses.
Easy, no-down mortgages can be very tempting, but it's important that you understand the exact terms and that you can meet them without stressing your finances.
For FREE help with debt and credit, subscribe today to Douglas Hanna's free email newsletter 8 Simple Steps to Debt Relief at http://www.all-in-one-info.

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Graham Norwood is a UK based journalist focusing on the property market. He is a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, The Independent and The Observer, as well as numerous property magazines in the UK and overseas.

So this is how the government stimulates the economy – cutting VAT by 2.5%, £700m more for social housing, extra funds for house insulation, and a relaxed timetable for paying taxes.

It seems unlikely to make Britons purchase more consumer goods but, crucially, it is unlikely to make banks lend or would-be house buyers take the plunge. What else could it have done to help the housing market?

It could have forced housing associations to buy excess private housing stock, used strong-arm tactics on publicly-funded banks to help house buyers, and it could have extended the terms of its stamp duty holiday.

Would any of that directly help central London? Actually, probably not.

But it would boost confidence, which is so vital to the well-being of a great city now threatened by a teetering financial services sector, a sceptical foreign exchange market, and home owners and landlords worried about falling values.

It is in the nature of pundits, as well as Oliver Twist, to ask for ‘more’. But a nice Dickensian touch this Christmas would have been for the government to give a bigger helping of assistance for the hard-pressed property market.

It wasn’t to be. Once our festive celebrations are over we will see if it was just one big missed opportunity…and whether we really will have a prosperous 2009.

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First time home buyers who purchase a home on or after April 9, 2008 and before July 1, 2009 are to receive a tax credit of 10% of the purchase price, up to $7,500 from the federal government. Check on http://www.federalhousingtaxcredit.com/ for more detail
Who Qualifies for The First Time Home Buyers’ Tax Credit.· Home was purchased between April 9, 2008 and July 1, 2009.
· Single taxpayers with the modified adjusted gross income (MAGI defined by IRS) up to $75,000 and married taxpayers with incomes of $150,000.
· The home you have purchased or plan to purchase has to be your principal residence supportLists
· You have not owned a home in the past 3 years.
First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit at a Glance
· The tax credit is available for first-time home buyers only.
· The maximum credit amount is $7,500.
· The credit is available for homes purchased on or after April 9, 2008 and before July 1, 2009.
Single taxpayers with incomes up to $75,000 and married couples with incomes up to $150,000 qualify for the full tax credit. The tax credit works like an interest-free loan and must be repaid over a 15-year period. The $7,500 is a one time credit and is applied to the year in which the home purchase was made. However, this Tax Credit has to be repaid, interest free over the next 15 years back to Uncle Sam, starting 2 years after the home was purchased. Hence this government credit functions more as an interest-free loan. After receiving the Tax Credit if you decide to sell your home, the balance of what is not paid back to the Federal Government becomes due at the time of sale. If you are interested in receiving this tax credit, You can simply claim this $7,500 tax credit on your Federal Income Tax Return.If you have more question, regarding this please check with your tax consultant.

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Should You Buy a Home in Today's Market?
Before we start, let us give you one reason to not buy a new home right now.
How long do you intend to live there?
A rule of thumb is that it rarely makes sense to buy if you expect to move within two years. That's because when you do sell, there are costs associated with selling. We're not just talking about sales commissions to the buying and selling real estate brokers. Most owners rely on home appreciation to pay those costs and to provide the down payment and closing costs when they buy their next home. So buying a home when you expect to move before too long is a risk, especially in an uncertain market.
However, most buyers live in their new home an average of seven years or more. If that fits you, it almost always makes sense to buy rather than rent, in practically any market.
Why? First, if you are thinking about delaying a purchase because you want to "time the market" to get the very best deal, that is almost impossible to do with precision. Even if you are in an area with declining market prices, the most knowledgeable experts cannot reliably anticipate the "bottom" of a real estate market. Afterwards, they can look back and say, "The market began to turn in 1997," like it did in some areas of California that had a tough market in the nineties. Before the turn, though, no one knows.
Second, if you aren't an owner, you're a renter. Renting is just throwing money away. You don't get to reduce your income taxes by itemizing deductions like property taxes and mortgage interest.
As a renter, you are limited on what changes you can make to your living quarters. As an owner, you can paint your living room chartreuse if you want or put in an avocado green carpet. You can change light fixtures, garden and landscape. You can do whatever you want that makes your home a comfortable place for you and your family. It's your home, not a temporary place to sleep and eat until you do buy a home.
Third, interest rates are very low right now. If you wait, interest rates could be higher. That means your monthly payment could be higher, too. No one can predict rates that far in the future, of course, but rates are very low right now.
Plus, the easiest way to accumulate wealth is through home ownership. Three out of four people have more equity in their home than assets in retirement plans, stocks, mutual funds, and savings. Though no one can guarantee your property will appreciate, over time it generally does. Over the long term, you can generally count on it. In the last five years, the median price of homes all across America has increased in value approximately 10% per year. Usually, it's not quite that high.
Admittedly, there are some areas that had more rapid appreciation in recent years. Those markets may suffer from lower price-growth than the rest of the nation or region over the next couple of years.
How do you minimize the possibility of lower appreciation for your home?
Determine your price range. Then choose a neighborhood where your target price is in the lower tier of prices in that neighborhood. That way, your home has less vulnerability on the down side and the higher-priced homes will help pull you up during hot markets.
Also, try to steer away from homes on busy streets or homes that back to busy streets. Buy a house as close to the center of the tract as possible. Don't buy houses across the street from a park or a school. Try to buy in a homogeneous area, where all the homes are similar to one another. For example, if you are buying a single family home, you do not want to buy next to an apartment or condominium complex.
Finally, talk to a real estate agent and ask for advice. Ask them what the market is like in your area.
Best of all, there are LOTS of sellers out there right now. Inventory is high. If you make an offer, ask for incentives to buy that particular home.
If you are putting ten percent down or more, you can ask for up to six percent of the purchase price in incentives. These incentives cannot be rebates of cash or help with down payment, but you can ask the seller to pay your closing costs. You can also ask the seller to pay for a temporary interest rate "buydown" that lowers your payment over the first one to three years and still gets you the security of a fixed rate mortgage -- and fixed rates are very low right now.
If you're putting down five percent or less, you can still ask for incentives. The amount you can ask for is limited to three percent of the purchase price. The reason there are limits is because you are going to finance the purchase with a mortgage and lenders have guidelines on how much sellers can provide in incentives. Those guidelines help them limit loan fraud.
Talk to a real estate agent. Have that agent recommend a lender who will talk to you about incentives and explain what you can request.
Good luck.

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This is just asinine. There's a CNN article by a fellow named Elliott C. McLaughlin who says Gustav won't be "sneaking up" on New Orleans like Katrina did.

Talk about misremembering history.

Hurricanes don't "sneak up." They can't. They might have, in years past, when we didn't have access to satellite imagery and a bazillion different news sources, some of whom have ridiculous agendas and feel compelled to blame weather phenomena on whoever's in the White House (as long as it's a Republican), and the Red Cross and other agencies weren't shouting about preparedness and hurricane kits and so on.

But New Orleans knew Katrina was coming. What nobody really knows, until just before landfall, is precisely where the hurricane is going. Back when I was a lieutenant in the Air Force stationed at Eglin Air Force Base, we were waiting for Frederick to make landfall. I taped my windows, took all the stuff off of the shelves, and spent the night on the floor of my quarters, behind the couch. We were expected to be hammered.

Frederick took a left and slammed Mobile.

But it wasn't that nobody knew it was coming, even back in 1979. Twenty-nine years later we have much better forecasting tools, and Katrina wasn't "sneaking" anywhere.

The governor of Louisiana (Kathleen "We Don't Need Anybody's Help" Blanco) failed to accurately assess the danger to her own constituents and didn't issue an evacuation order until it was too late.

The mayor of New Orleans (Ray "What Buses?" Nagin) stiff-armed any offers of assistance, including Amtrak's offer to fill their empty passenger cars with people prior to sending all the trains out, until it was too late.

The New Orleans Police Department refused to let the Red Cross and other agencies in after the hurricane passed, blocking the roads and bridges (keeping people in, as well) and several of their officers engaged in looting.

But to claim that Katrina snuck up -- that's just the stupidest thing I've read all week.

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The hard way always seems to be the better way. I have been told there are two ways to do things in life, “The hard way and the easy way.” I think most want to do things the hard way. When it comes to buying a house for the first time, there is process to follow so your buying experience is not done the hard way. The easy way may not seem the best way in the eyes of a buyer, but I assure you it’s the correct process. I have seen more problems with mortgage loans following apart because someone led the cart before the horse. Here is the easy way to buy a home.

Get approved first
The first step in the home buying process is to get your finances in order first. Get your credit reports pulled and your income verified to see where you stand. If you don’t do this first I guarantee that you will have problems. Most want to go and look at homes first and then apply for a mortgage. This is why all the nightmares you hear about happen in the lending industry.

Meet with reputable lender
After you have been approved for a mortgage meet with the lender to review what type of loan they have approved you for. You need to understand the loan and your estimated payments with your credit. It is important that you understand all aspects of your loan and monthly payments. Mortgage payment can be an issue as well, because you thought you payment might be lower. Some of the on-line calculators don’t estimate your entire payment, which causes confusion in lending. The calculators on-line usually estimate your principal and interest payment only, which does not include your taxes, MIP, and homes owners insurance with the payment. So make sure your review all of this with a reputable lender.

Meet with a seasoned realtor
After you have met with a lender and have been approved, the next step is to get a realtor to find homes in your price range. I would recommend that you find a full-time realtor, not one that is part time. The reason is if there is a problem during the day, you will have issues getting a hold of this realtor because they are at work. There are a lot of part-time realtors out there, and as far as I am concerned should not be allowed to have their license. Real Estate is a fulltime career and requires someone that has experience. If you are working with a realtor that does not have experience you could have issues as well.

If this process is followed and the people you are working with are experienced, then your home buying process should be a good one. Buying a home is a big step in life and needs to be handled by experienced real estate professionals.

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Once you know what youre interested in, the next step is to choose how much protection you want.
Think about how much it would cost to replace your home and your possessions. You also might want to think about what would happen if someone had an accident and got hurt. Medical expenses might not be too bad, or they could be pretty significant. Keep in mind that if you dont have enough insurance coverage, you could be responsible for paying those expenses with your own salary or your assets.
Typically, youll be choosing a limit or a deductible.
A limit is the maximum amount an insurance company will pay out for a particular coverage. A higher limit means more protection, and that protection will cost more money.
A deductible is the amount youve agreed to pay out of your pocket before the insurance company pays for any other covered losses.

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It is that time of year again, and like wildflowers, real estate signs are springing up in yards across town. Home buyers will rub their palms together in excitement. After all, the timing is right, as most rental property leases are ending, and many of those who were renting are now in the market to buy. Where does a first-time home buyer seek guidance? A good, ethical real estate professional is a nice place to start. What are the basic facts that a first home buyer should know, and what are some good questions to ask a real estate professional.

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Through the years I've always enjoyed working with first time home buyers and in particular commendable first time buyers who take the proper steps to make the home buying process enjoyable for themselves and in turn their agent.
Not too long ago I was covering the phones when a call came in from a young man inquiring about a home which happened to ba a duplex. I gave him the pertinent information and we set up a showing to take a look on the upcoming Saturday morning. As it turned out the home required more work thanhe was willing to put into itand quickly ruled it out. We talked a little about his home buying goals and he did have an underlyinggoal, buy his first home and start investing in real estate.
I offered to do a further search for him and set him up with a Listing Cartwhich automatically updates daily with new listings matching his search criteria. He accepted my offer and we soon found a couple more possibilities for him; at this point I thought it would be a good time for an office consultation and go over the home buying process with him. This often seems to be where a lot of potential home buyers dig their heels in and bog down but not this one, he was anxious to do things right and jumped at the chance to learn more. I love it when when a buyer wants to learn and even more when they're willing to listen and take advice.
To make a long story short; after the consultation we were able to identify our goals, narrow the search and quickly found a home that was a solid investment for him which weclosed in about three weeks. Not only was this a smooth and memorable home buying experience for both of us but two weeks later he attended a real estate investment seminar as my guest and is planning for the long term. I truely commend this first time home buyer, he has a good head on his shoulders and should be very proud of himself, I know I am.

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