Another Tax Credit for First Time Buyers in California?
Yes, the Federal Home Buyer Tax Credit will end on April 30, 2010, but there may be some good news on the horizon for first time buyers in California. Bill AB-183 has been passed by both houses of the California legislature by near unanimous votes, and is expected to be signed by Governor Schwarzenegger very soon. This allows for up to $10,000 in tax credits for first time buyers, and the big difference between this and the previous California tax credit is that you can actually use it for the purchase of an existing home (not only for new homes). According to this bill, $100 million will be set aside for sales of existing homes, while another $100 million will be for sales of new homes. It will take effect from May 1st to the end of this year, but as there is a limited amount of funds, it probably wouldn’t be good to wait until November or December. More details will be forthcoming once the bill is signed and confirmed, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to help those who are stressing out over buying a home before the April 30th deadline. Unfortunately, this is only for first-time buyers, so those who are thinking to “move up” (sell their existing home and purchase a bigger and better one) still need to get moving (no pun intended).
Here’s the link to one article about Bill AB-183: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/03/24/2629239/schwarzenegger-expected-to-sign.html
Jean Joh: Visit my website at www.jeanjoh.com or follow me on twitter as jeanjoh.
If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to the Author's RSS feed or the Blog's RSS Feed!
Comments
8 Responses to “Another Tax Credit for First Time Buyers in California?”
Leave a Reply
-
Join us on Facebook
-
Join us on Twitter
-
Recent Posts
- What is a reverse mortgage?
- ‘Tis the Season for Tax Breaks
- Top 5 Reasons to Buy a House in the Bay Area in 2012
- After Christmas Sale, – Bay Area Homes up to 60% off
- San Bruno Eye Sore is about to Go
- What If My Offer Is Rejected?
- It’s a Buyers’ Market for Real Estate Investors, too
- How to choose the “Best” real estate home loan.
-
Categories
-
Archives
This is a really great benefit! YiPEE!
Jean,
I heard this on the news yesterday. I am quite surprised it is not getting more press. It is my impression that the Governor proposed this credit so it will be a no brainer for him to sign. The new homes does not affect us directly that much but it certainly puts a lot of people to work and lets hope it hekps keep people in their homes or enables some to purchase.
Very timely post.
Lee
Jean,
Thank You for a very well written and easy to understand overview of the proposed new state tax credit plan.
I think it will benefit our area as most of our housing inventory are existing homes.
Great info!
Brian
Thanks for the comments. Lee mentioned the new home sales as not affecting us much, but one big change this new bill has is that it will apply to sales of EXISTING homes as well. It’ll be interesting to see how this may overlap, if at all, for some clients in conjunction with the federal tax credit.
News just came in that this is official. $100M set aside for first time buyers of existing homes and another $100M for first time buyers of new homes.
It’s a great move on part of the California Governor and the best thing is that it can be put towards the sale of existing homes as well. So, Californians who couldn’t take advantage of the Federal first time homebuyer tax credit may try their luck with the state homebuyer tax credit. However, homebuyers are required to apply the tax credit in 3 equal amounts over 3 consecutive years (at an average of $3333 every year). The following websites can be helpful for anyone looking to get information on the first time buyer tax credit:
http://www.ftb.ca.gov/individuals/New_Home_Credit.shtml
http://www.mortgagefit.com/homeloan/taxcredit-extension.html
*** TAX Credit AB 183 violates first-come, first-served basis***
The AB 183 statement: “The tax credit will be available to buyers on a first-come, first-served basis and is applied in equal amounts over a period of three taxable years.”
At that time most people believed that it would be the same as IRS Credit for first time home owner.
I bought my first home and closed escrow account on 05/19/2010. My realtor as well as the escrow employees did not know about the 14 days limit to submit the application. No body told me about that until I visited FTB website on 06/07/2010. Even though, it was 5 days late, I faxed my application on that day. And my application was denied.
I believe it is unfair practice. It is unfair because it is not a first-come, first-served basis as the law said. I submitted application and bought a house first, but my application was denied because 14 day limit. Whereas, other homeowners bought a house after me and submitted application after me, but their application were approved.
FTB should announce clearly and widely on radio, TV, not only on its website and should allow the time enough for the information reach the recipients.
FTB should do more and clear because normal people may assume it is the same as IRS. Moreover, two-week limitation is too short .
What do you think if the Right to speech have a limit “you cannot critize the government?” like Chinese communist?
If you visit this web site on 03/26/2010 you can see no info about 14 days limit law of FTB.
http://california.realestaterama.com/2010/03/26/governor-schwarzenegger-signs-10000-homebuyer-tax-credit-legislation-ID0583.html
FTB 14 days annoucement
http://www.ftb.ca.gov/individuals/new_home_credit.shtml?WT.mc_id=HP_Feature_HomeCredit_Hed
To lichmc: So sorry to hear about your experience with the California tax credit. As a real estate agent assisting my first-time home buyers, I actually read through the requirements for the federal and California credits several times over just to make sure I didn’t miss anything, as these things can be pretty tricky and there were definite differences between the two.
I know of many people who benefited from the California credit, and again, am sorry that things didn’t work out for you. Jean