Currnet Owners – The tax credit program now gives those who already own a residence some additional reasons to move to a new home. The incentive comes in the form of a tax credit of up to $6,500 for qualified purchasers. Qualified purchasers must have owned and occupied a primary residence for a period of five consecutive years during the last eight years.

Single taxpayers and married couples filing a joint return may qualify for the full tax credit amount.

NEW DEADLINES
In order to qualify for the credit, all contracts need to be in effect no later than April 30, 2010 and close no later than June 30, 2010.

TAX CREDIT vs TAX DEDUCTION
It’s important to remember that the tax redit is just that, a tax credit. The benefit of a tax credit is that it’s a dollar-for-dollar tax reduction, rather than a redution in a tax liability that would only save you $1000 to $1,500 when all was said and done. So, if a first-time homebuyer were to owe $8000 in income taxes, they would owe nothing.

Better still, the tax credit is refundable, which means the homebuyer can receive a check for the credit if he or she has little income tax liability. For example, if a first-time homebuyer is eligible for a tax credit of $8,000 but is liable for $4,000 in income tax, she can still receive a check for the remaining $4,000.

HIGHER INCOME CAPS
The amount of income someone can earn and qualify for the full amount of the credit has been increased.

Single tax filers who earn up to $125,000 are eligible for the total credit amount. Those who earn more than this cap can receive a partial credit. However, single filers who earn $145,000 and above are ineligible.

Joint filers who earn up to $225,000 are eligible for the total credit amount. Those who earn more than this cap can receive a partial credit. However, joint filers who earn $245,000 and above are ineligible.

MAXIMUM PURCHASE PRICE
Qualifying buyers may purchase a property with a maximum sale price of $800,000.

ADDITIONAL HOUSING RELATED PROVISIONS

TAX INCENTIVES to SPUR ENERGY SAVINGS
This provision is designed to help promote energy-efficient investments in homes by extending and expanding tax credits through 2010 for purchases such as new furnaces, energy-efficient windows and doors, or insulation.

LANDMARK ENERGY SAVINGS
This provision provides $5 Billion for energy efficient improvements for more than one million modest-income homes through weatherization. According to some estimates, this can help modest-income families save an average of $350 a year on heating and air conditioning bills.

REPAIRING PUBLIC HOUSING and MAKING KEY ENERGY EFFICIENCY RETROFITS to HUD-ASSISTED HOUSING
This provision provides a total of $6.3 Billion for increasing energy efficiency in federally supported housing programs. Specifically, it establishes a new program to upgrade HUD-sponsored low-income housing (for elderly, disable, an Section 8 ) to increase energy efficiency, including new insulation, windows, and frames.

EXPANDED HOUSING ASSISTANCE
This provision increases support for several critical housing programs. It includes $2 Billion for the Neighborhood Stabilazation Program to help communities purchase and rehabilitate foreclosed, vacant properties.

But before I get to that, I will also tell you that it is in your best interest to use a real estate agent and not try to sell the property yourself. Besides the obvious safety issues involved with letting complete strangers into your home, there are a host of others which will be a topic for a later post.

After living in a place for a while, your sorroundings reach a state of “accepted normalcy” for you. Even though that section of the wall has a crack in it, or the ugly carpet that you were going to rip out and replace is still there. Somehow, over time that crack and the ugly carpet don’t shout out to you like the time you first noticed them. Over time, they have become part of your “accepted” sorroundings. You still may not like the crack or the carpet, but you’ve accepted them like a bad relative. Unfortunately, the person thinking about buying your home may not be so accepting. Usually, it will mean one of two things. The house is not quite right for them, or they will offer you a lower price than you wanted.

It is often difficult for someone who is not typically involved with the selling of real estate, to asses the impact of their accepted sorroundings on a potential buyer. In a sellers market, you might be able to get away with having the picture of St. Anthony covering part of the crack on the wall, but not in today’s buyer’s market. Does that mean that you have to go nuts fixing and replacing every single little thing that might be wrong with your home? The answer is no. However, the closer your home fits with the buyer’s expectations of a clean move in ready home, the better your chances of selling your home and getting your asking price.

1) SET EXPECTATIONS
How it looks from the outside will set up a buyer to be eager to enter or disillusioned from the get go. Spend a little time organizing and making your house look good from the street. Trim your bushes, edge the lawn. If the property is vacant, make sure the lawn is freshly mowed before a showing. Remove the piles of stagnant leaves that have made their way under some of your plants and into the gutters. Paint the mailbox post and replace the beat up mailbox if necessary. It is typically the first thing you see when pulling up to a house. Check the lowest section of your exterior wall to see if it needs a little cleaning from the sprinkle spots that dirt leaves after it rains. If you garbage cans are at all visible from the approach, try to position them out of sight.

2) COMPOSE YOUR VIEWS
You are probably not even aware that you are doing it, but everytime you visit a space, a room, a home you are looking through a series of random or composed views. Think of you home like a painting that will be engraved in the visitor’s mind and try to compose an attractive scene. When you approach your front door or leave through the front door, what is the scene. What is the focus of that scene? If you haven’t thought about it, stop and examine where your eye is drawn. In one house, as I was leaving through the front door, the thing that caught my eye was the wall of the side of the house that was directly across the street. It was vinyl siding and it was filthy. It probably had not been cleaned in thirty years. It stuck out like a sore thumb.

What to do… I contemplated having the seller plant a tree to try and hide the view, but that would not work. I asked the owner of the house with the filthy wall, if he’d be kind enough to let me test my power washer on his wall. ”How much are you going to charge me?” he asked. “Nothing”. I replied. He turned out to be a  great help and let me use his electricity and water. Wow! what a difference that view made. We started to get offers. There are some things you can control in composing a view and others you cannot. Be creative in composing where the eye of the buyer will focus. You’ll be surprised just how much of a difference it makes in the overall marketability of your home.

3) DEFINE A SENSE OF SPACE
This is one of those things that is a spill over from my architeture days, but is essential in making a buyer “want” to live in your home. A buyer may need your home and still not buy it. But when they want your home, you can get start to get excited because they are serious. Here’s an exercise for you. Stand approximately ten feet from the front door to your home. Look at your front door then close your eyes. What do you remember…what is memorable about standing there as you are about to enter into this house? If your answer is nothing, or if your answer is the smudges on the glass of the storm door, then you have some work to do. What do I mean? Make it obvious that there is something noteworthy about this home even before they set foot inside. It could be as simple as having a nicely polished set of house numbers for the address of the house. Perhaps it is an accent plant or a nicely painted handrail that compliments the steps. It can also be that special light fixture that replaced the cheap one that came with the house when you moved in.

What is the sense of space that you get when standing those ten feet from the front door? If it’s none, then make the effort to make it something positive and memorable. Get rid of the spider webs, smudges on the glass, dirty boots, dead or dying plant, filthy entry floor mat, ugly bright paint in your entryway, water hose, or other eye sores. Strategically, this is an important space to build a positive experience for the buyer and it doesn’t take much. A few smart choices here will yield big points for your home in the buyer’s mind. This is all about making your house more of a want than a house that they simply need.

In my next post I will talk about things that you can do on the inside of your home to make it more attractive to a potential buyer. Until then, good luck! ~ Diogenes Ruiz, Realty World Partners