Anyone Tweet?

Want to get instant updates on the real estate market? You can now follow my mom on Twitter.

You can find her under

TifaniAndCo

As a reminder.....

Don't forget to set your clocks ahead tonight. It's time to 'Spring Forward'! Yay, now it will be lighter out longer!

First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit

My mom is getting asked tons of questions about this first-time home buyer tax credit. I decided to post a few of the top questions she gets asked.

Frequently Asked Questions
In 2008, Congress enacted a $7500 tax credit designed to be an incentive for first-time homebuyers to purchase a home. The credit was designed as a mechanism to decrease the over-supply of homes for sale.
For 2009, Congress has increased the credit to $8000 and made several additional improvements. This revised $8000 tax credit applies to purchases on or after January 1, 2009 and before December 1, 2009.

Who is eligible?
Only first-time homebuyers are eligible. A person is considered a first-time buyer if he/she has not had any ownership interest in a home in the three years previous to the day of the 2009 purchase.

Do I have to repay the 2009 tax credit?
NO. There is no repayment for 2009 tax credits.
Do 2008 purchasers still have to repay their tax credit?
YES. The $7500 credit in 2008 was more like an interest-free loan. All eligible purchasers who claimed the 2008 credit will still be required to repay it over 15 years, starting with their 2010 tax return.

How do I apply for the credit?
There is no pre-purchase authorization, application or similar approval process. All eligible purchasers simply claim the credit on their IRS Form 1040 tax return. The credit will be reflected on a new Form 5405 that will be attached to the 1040. Form 5405 can be found at http://www.wra.org/Communications/107064/12372229/63067228.
So I can't use the credit amount as part of my downpayment?
No. Congress tried hard to devise a mechanism that would make the funds available for closing costs, but found that pre-funding would require cumbersome processes that would, in effect, bring the IRS into the purchase and settlement phase of the transaction.

In a world of bad news, here's a story to put a smile on your face.

Team's gesture supports grieving opponent
ESPN.com news services
Two missed free throws, ordinarily the cause of a coach's headache, became the symbol of sportsmanship in a Milwaukee boys' basketball game earlier this month.
Milwaukee Madison senior Johntell Franklin, who lost his mother, Carlitha, to cancer on Saturday, Feb. 7, decided he wanted to play in that night's game against DeKalb (Ill.) High School after previously indicating he would sit out.
He arrived at the gym in the second quarter, but Franklin's name was not in the scorebook because his coach, Aaron Womack Jr., didn't expect him to be there.
Rules dictated Womack would have to be assessed a technical, but he was prepared to put Franklin in the game anyway. DeKalb coach Dave Rohlman and his players knew of the situation, and told the referees they did not want the call.
The referees had no choice. But Rohlman did.
"I gathered my kids and said, 'Who wants to take these free throws?'" Rohlman said, recounting the game to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "Darius McNeal put up his hand. I said, 'You realize you're going to miss, right?' He nodded his head."
McNeal, a senior point guard, went to the line. The Milwaukee Madison players stayed by their bench, waiting for the free throws. Instead of seeing the ball go through the net, they saw the ball on the court, rolling over the end line.
"I turned around and saw the ref pick up the ball and hand it back to the player," Womack said in the Journal Sentinel. "And then [McNeal] did the same thing again."
Said Rohlman: "Darius set up for a regular free throw, but he only shot it two or three feet in front of him. It bounced once or twice and just rolled past the basket."
"I did it for the guy who lost his mom," McNeal told the newspaper. "It was the right thing to do."
Womack, overwhelmed by DeKalb's gesture, wrote a letter to the DeKalb Daily Chronicle, which had first reported the story.
"As a principal, school, school district staff, and community you should all feel immense pride for the remarkable job that the coaching staff is doing in not only coaching these young men, but teaching them how to be leaders," Womack wrote.
DeKalb had traveled more than two hours for the game, and waited another two as Womack rushed from the hospital, where he had been with Franklin, to the school to gather his team.
"We were sympathetic to the circumstances and the events," Rohlman said in the Journal Sentinel. "We even told Coach Womack that it'd be OK to call off the game, but he said we had driven 2½ hours to get here and the kids wanted to play. So we said, 'Spend some time with your team and come out when you're ready.'"
The two schools had met twice previously, and this one ended with a Madison victory, but as in the other games, they also shared a pizza dinner, "four kids to a pizza, two Madison kids and two DeKalb kids," Womack told the Journal Sentinel.
"That letter became a big deal in DeKalb," Rohlman said in the paper. "We got lots of positive calls and e-mails because of it. Even though we lost the game, it was a true life lesson, and it's not one our kids are going to forget anytime soon."
Womack, in his letter to the DeKalb Daily Chronicle, added this at the end: "I'd like to recognize Darius who stepped up to miss the shot on purpose. He could have been selfish and cared only for his own stats [I hope Coach Rohlman doesn't make him run for missing the free throws]."

Winnebago Home Show

I wanted to let you know that the Winnebago Home Builders Association (WHBA) Home Show starts tomorrow and runs through Sunday. My mom will be working at the show in the Coldwell Banker The Real Estate Group booth on Saturday, February 14th, from 10 a.m. to noon. Please come out and visit her and other members of the Pawlosky Team as well!

Admission is free if you bring a canned good. All donations are going to the Salvation Army Food Pantry which my mom is a big supporter of. You can also make a donation to the Habitat for Humanity to get in free of charge. For more information you can check out http://www.whba.net/.

I wish I could go with my mom but she said they don't let 4 legged people in. How unfair!

I Really Don't Get It!

What Are You Waiting For?
Houses on sale, interest rates still near all-time lows, and lenders no longer pushing mortgages that get you into trouble - this may be the best time to buy a house.
Not since the Great Depression has there been such a steep decline in the prices of homes. You can call it a crisis, or as the federal regulators say, a "correction," but it just as meaningful to call it a "sale," so yes, it's probably a good time to buy a house. Of course there is no guarantee that we have reached the bottom on prices, but at the very least you know you are paying substantially less than you would have a couple years ago.
What if you're a first time home buyer? Well, it makes sense to buy something when it's on sale - including a house. In addition, interest rates are still low (as of late 2008). And although it's tougher to get financing now, this isn't all bad. You can feel safer knowing that banks and other lenders are no longer allowing borrowers to get mortgages they can’t afford. Plus first time buyers can receive a credit of $7,500 to use as they would like (basically an interest-free 15 yr loan).
Now, if you have the financial means, you might want to buy the new home now without selling your existing house. You can rent out your current house and wait for better times when you might get more for it.
Buyers have more of a home selection than has ever been seen before. What are you waiting for? As they say, “You Snooze, You Lose”.

9 Housing-Market Head Winds for 2009 (from Yahoo real estate)

With home prices having dropped a painful 21 percent from their 2006 peaks, property owners everywhere could use a splash of good news in their New Year's Eve cocktails. But as a nasty recession is now part of the picture, the chances of an aggressive housing market rebound next year are dim. "A lasting recovery in the housing market?" says Mike Larson, a real estate analyst at Weiss Research. "I don't see it in the cards until the back end of the year—if that."
Here's a look at the factors that will be weighing down the housing market in 2009:

1. Recession: After months of speculation, the National Bureau of Economic Research made it official Monday, announcing that the U.S. economy entered into a recession in December 2007. The only question now is: How painful a recession will we have? In a November 21 report, economists at Goldman Sachs revised their previous forecast to reflect a more significant economic contraction and higher unemployment. "We now estimate that real GDP is falling at a 5 percent annual rate in the current quarter, and we expect this to be followed by declines of 3 percent and 1 percent in the next two quarters," the economists said. "This deepens and extends the expected recession, bringing the drop in GDP close to the decline seen in 1982 (2.3 percent in our forecast versus 2.7 percent then)." The recession will exert downward pressure on the housing market in a number of ways.
2. Higher Unemployment: The shrinking economy will result in additional layoffs, which will work to smother housing demand. The unemployment rate has already been climbing—it now stands at 6.5 percent—but many expect it to increase significantly in the coming year. Goldman Sachs projects the unemployment rate to hit 9 percent by the end of 2009. "This forecast, if correct, makes the current recession unequivocally the worst single downturn on record since World War II insofar as increases in joblessness are concerned," the economists said. Fewer jobs mean fewer home buyers, since an income stream is essential to obtaining a mortgage. "A job is necessary for a home," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "Without [a job] you can't get [a home]."
3. Consumer Confidence: If consumers are worried about the state of the economy and their jobs, they are much less likely to make the biggest financial investment of their lives: buying a house. With a leading survey showing that consumer confidence in the United States dropped to 28-year lows in November, downward pressure on this front will be working against the housing market as well. "You generally don't buy a home unless you feel pretty good about your economic situation," Zandi says. "No one feels good [today]."
4. The Underwater Effect: A recent Zillow report found that 1 in 7 American homeowners has negative equity—owing more on a home than it is worth. (For those who bought a home in the past five years, it's nearly 1 in 3.) Many homeowners in this situation will choose to simply walk away from their homes rather than continue to pay off a devaluing investment. And with home prices expected to fall further next year, the number of "underwater" mortgages will most likely increase. "The underwater phenomenon is going to be very bad in 2009," says Christopher Thornberg of Beacon Economics.
5. Tighter Credit: As banks face higher loan delinquencies, they've responded by jacking up their lending standards for even well-qualified borrowers. The Federal Reserve's most recent Senior Loan Officer Survey found that 70 percent of domestic banks had boosted their lending standards for prime mortgages. More stringent terms will prevent certain borrowers from obtaining mortgages, thereby limiting demand for housing.
6. Slowing Household Formation: At the same time, the pace of new household formation is slowing, which further chips away at housing demand. Richard Moody, chief economist at Mission Residential, says the development is linked to three factors: More singles are moving in with each other, young adults are returning to live with their parents, and fewer immigrants are entering the country. "For those three reasons, you are seeing a slowdown in the rate of household formation," Moody says. "And to the extent that the economy and the labor market remain weak this year—which I think they will—then that's going to continue."
7. Radioactive Effect: Despite lower real estate prices and cheaper mortgage rates, the pain inflicted by the housing bust will frighten many would-be buyers away from the market next year, Larson says. "Enough of your 'average Joes' have been burned very badly and will be burned by the time this is all over that investment money is not going to flood back into the market," Larson says. "Any recovery—in my opinion—will be gradual and is going to take time."
8. Foreclosure Sales: A huge problem for the housing market in 2008, foreclosures sales will continue weighing down the market next year. "There was a surge this year," Zandi says. "But next year [there] will be even more." While that will give buyers an opportunity to go bargain hunting, it's bad news for sellers. "It puts more homes out there for sale at a very deep discount," Zandi adds.
9. Subprime Mortgages: While resetting subprime mortgages may not be a leading factor behind the decline in home prices—as they were this year—such products will again be working against the housing market in 2009, Thornberg says. "There are still lots of subprime mortgages out there that are going to reset not just in 2009, but 2010 and 2011," he says. "And so that's going to be a consistent problem for a while, although it is probably reduced in magnitude [from 2008]."