According to a White House official, President Barack Obama plans to extend a deadline for first-time homebuyers to complete purchases and qualify for an $8,000 tax credit.
Obama may sign the extension as soon as today, the person said, declining to be identified before the White House receives the bill from Congress. Qualified home-buyers who signed purchase contracts before April 30 will have until Sept. 30 to complete paperwork and settle on the house.
Lucien Salvant, a spokesman for the National Association of Realtors, whose group sought the extension, stated: “They’re cheering out there, they’re really rejoicing!!!”
The House voted 409-5 on June 29 to extend the deadline, and the Senate approved the measure on a voice vote last night. Republicans, including Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, had tried to block the extension, calling the tax-credit program flawed.
Late yesterday, on the Senate floor, as the deadline was about to expire, DeMint stated:
“We only created a bubble, which will eventually burst. For the people who haven’t closed on their homes by today, it’s not that they won’t get their house, only that they won’t get a taxpayer subsidy for having bought a house now rather than later.”
“We only created a bubble, which will eventually burst. For the people who haven’t closed on their homes by today, it’s not that they won’t get their house, only that they won’t get a taxpayer subsidy for having bought a house now rather than later.”
To qualify, homebuyers had to sign a purchase contract by April 30 and finish the deal by June 30. A jump in sales produced a backlog of paperwork that kept some homebuyers from completing transactions by the June 30 deadline. As many as 180,000 home buyers might be helped by the extension.
The tax credit may have fueled a temporary increase in home sales, which fell after the April deadline passed. Sales of new homes dropped 33% to a record low of 300,000 in May, the Commerce Department reported. Sales of previously owned homes fell 2.2% that month, according to the National Association of Realtors. Applications for loans to purchase properties fell at the end of May to the lowest level since 1997, according to a Mortgage Bankers Association report.
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