It’s mid-October and the $8000 first-time homebuyer’s tax credit is scheduled to expire at the end of November. There’s been much debate nationally…and around our office…about how much this has actually ‘helped’ Charlottesville and Albemarle County home sales.
Overall, it’s my take that it hasn’t increased sales that much. I know it’s impossible to quantify either way, but if you took the total cost of the program and figured out how many first-time homebuyers jumped off the proverbial fence b/c of the credit, I’d bet that it didn’t make financial sense. That isn’t to say that it wasn’t a good idea or that it was a mistake. Our government was being proactive in rough times – that’s a good thing.
But the thought of extending it and putting our country further into debt is a tough pill to swallow.
For a more in-depth conversation on the topic, check out Jim Duncan’s RealCentralVA Blog…