Who Qualifies For Move-Up Tax Credit?

When President Obama signed into law recently an extension of the first-time homebuyer tax credit (up to $8,000), another tax credit for existing homeowners was tacked on, but with a lot of conditions.

The first-time homebuyer is defined as not having owned a primary residence for the past 3 years. A move-up or repeat buyer is defined as a person who has owned and resided in the same home for at least five consecutive years of the eight years prior to the purchase date.

Many real estate analysts have credited the first-time homebuyer incentive as a major impetus in home sales in 2009. Perhaps. But it's hard to imagine how "up to $6,500" in tax credit will be much incentive for people who can qualify for a second home. The tax credit is based on 10% of the home’s purchase price up to a maximum of $6,500. Any homes priced below $800,000 is eligible for the tax credit.

However, you cannot purchase a home from, among other family members, your ancestors (parents, grandparents, etc.), your lineal descendants (children, grandchildren, etc.) or your spouse or your spouse’s family members. Please consult with your tax advisor for more information. Also see IRS Form 5405.

To qualify, there is an income limit for single taxpayers is $125,000; $225,000 for married taxpayers filing a joint return. Partial credit may be available to those with higher modified adjusted gross income.

It seems to me that giving away this money continues to sap our coffers and has no positive effect on people and their communities. Between the looting of the Treasury, senseless wars, and bailouts of big businesses, insane amounts of taxpayer dollars have been thrown to unlikely and undeserving hands.

Making our money available to us through affordable and reasonable-to-get lines of credit -- that $42,000+ per man, woman and child stolen to bailout the banking industry (which gambled it away in derivitives, and continues those unregulated practices!) -- would go a long way toward giving small business what it needs to operate, and thereby stimulate the economy and innovation.

For more information on the Move-Up and Repeat Buyer tax credit, see http://www.federalhousingtaxcredit.com/faq2.php

New Real Estate Research To Be Available Spring 2010

The National Association of Realtors recently announced a new product, Realtors® Property Resource (RPR), which is scheduled to be released to Realtors® in April 2010.

RPR promises to be a powerful national database of 140 million property records, both residential and commercial intended become the most superior resource for all real estate matters.

According to the NAR, the system will provide 265 million residential and commercial assessments, sales and mortgage records which will be updated more than 650,000 times each month. Additionally, it will include all the on-market and off-market data from MLS's, including photos, virtual tours and notes by individual agents to create the most accurate source of real estate data in the country.

Distressed Property: Plans are to include 850,000 distressed property records, complete with address, owner and mortgage information and updated monthly.

Schools: Also available will be information on 125,000 public and private elementary, middle and high schools, along with detailed data and parent reviews.

Neighborhood demographic data will detail more than 700,000 communities and feature psychographic data, i.e., consumer spending and consumption habits.

The Realtor Valuation Model is touting 90% accuracy using MLS data, which should be much better than Zillow's use of public records in its estimates, which is often very inaccurate, especially in a small and diverse market like Santa Fe.

Other features to be part of the system are:

• Real time saerches.
• Mapping tools with side-by-side comparisons.
• User-generated data changes.
• Personalized profile management.
• A library of customizable reports.
• Extensive help with live chat and a knowledge database.
• News features and marketing reports.
• A database for market analytics.

There is quite a bit of discussion in the real estate community as to whether RPR will compete with local MLS's and what impact it may have on companies like Zillow. But, if it presents as much accurate data as it claims, Realtors will have more valuable information to share with clients who, ultimately, should benefit from this.

New! Fights between Santa Fe and Los Angeles

Beginning Nov. 19, 2009, American Eagle, the regional affiliate of American Airlines, launched service to Santa Fe, New Mexico's capital city, with a daily nonstop flight from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF).

This is in addition to AA flights to Dallas which began earlier in the year. Now, Santa Fe's little airport, located on the southwest side of the city, actually has a few commercial flights. Hooray!

To celebrate this new service to Santa Fe, American is offering double AAdvantage(®) miles and low introductory fares. Log on to AA.com for details.

The schedule to and from Santa Fe (all times local):
Santa Fe to Los Angeles (SAF-LAX)

Flight Departs Arrives Days
3157 2:45 p.m. 3:55 p.m. Daily

Los Angeles to Santa Fe (LAX-SAF)

Flight Departs Arrives Days
3156 12:20 p.m. 3:15 p.m. Daily

Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to Santa Fe Municipal Airport
(DFW-SAF)

Flight Departs Arrives Days
3572 10:55 a.m. 11:45 a.m. Daily
*2849 1:25 p.m. 2:15 p.m. Daily

*New Flight

Santa Fe Municipal Airport To Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport
(SAF-DFW)
Flight Departs Arrives Days
3544 12:15 p.m. 2:50 p.m. Daily
*2850 3:45 p.m. 6:25 p.m. Daily

*New Flight