San Antonio's Rockstar Turned Realtor®

photo courtesy of RogueSun Media

I knew it was coming, I just wondered when.

I've been spending the last few months feeling very concerned over things I was seeing in my Google Analytics regarding the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit.  I've talked a lot about the credit as you can see in my post, "First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit - The Big Picture From Start to Finish(?)" and because the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit seemed to cause so much confusion, I felt it my job to try and make sure my readers, clients, and friends understood the IRS regulations governing the credit.  I have seen a lot of keyword searches in Google Analytics that make me think there a lot of people out there that might fear they have committed fraud with the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit.

The IRS is making it clear and cracking down.

In an effort to make sure people understand that they can't commit fraud in regards to the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit, the IRS has stepped up its efforts to warn the taxpayer and prosecute the fraudsters.  In a recent news release (July 29, 2009), the IRS announced its first successful prosecution and several search warrants and ongoing investigations into taxpayers falsely claiming the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit.

Please seek the advice of a qualified and trusted tax professional before claiming the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit.

Remember, you must close on your new home by December 1st to claim the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit.  If you'd like to speak with me about searching for your new home in San Antonio and getting pre-approved, pick up the phone or your keyboard and contact me.

photo courtesy of RogueSun Media

The hottest topic on Earth.

The First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit is perhaps one of the most talked about, blogged about, interpreted, and (unfortunately) misinterpreted topics in the real estate community of the last few months.  And for good reason too.  Allowing first time home buyers the opportunity for a little help from the IRS in the form of a refundable tax credit was thought of as a way to get buyers "on the fence" to move and start buying up some of the accumulated inventory available after the housing markets troubles.

I have written extensively on the topic over at RErockstar.com, so I thought I might post the "compendium" of posts here, so that you, my ActiveRain readers, might see just how intricate the topic has been.  The posts appear in the order I have written them, so please be sure to read through them all the way up to the end, as with each post, some of the information has changed.

First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit

Questions About The First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit

More Answers To Your First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit Questions

First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit As A Down Payment?

Hope you find these posts useful.

There are also many great posts here at ActiveRain on the subject - check out Jeff Belonger and Ken Cook for two people I consider to be experts on the issue.

photo courtest of NAR and my inbox

I feel like I'm treading water with cement shoes.

After the fiasco that was Donovan's announcement at NAR Midyear in Washington, D.C. that FHA would now allow consumers to use the $8,000 First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit, comes this email in my inbox.  For those of you that have no idea what this is all about, I recommend you read Jeff Belonger's post "Using First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credits for the Downpayment - It's GONE !!!! - The story of the $8,000 tax credit" - I'll wait for you to finish before I continue...

You're back?  Wow, you read fast.

So although the announcement was made, the idea is just that...an idea.  It has not been implemented yet and although I have a feeling they're working on making it possible, until it's official (since words from Donovan's speeches aren't all that official apparently), I'd wait until your qualified FHA lenders tell you differently.  Boots on the ground.

So, moments before I wrote this post (May 15, 2009), I got my latest issue of Realtor® Real Estate News in my inbox.  The lead article?  The announcement made by Donovan (on May 12, 2009) during NAR Midyear.  Back in the days of paper press, you could hardly stop news like this from going to print unless you were willing to yell "stop the presses!"  However, this is the internet age.  Someone could have had this bit of news struck from the email within moments.

Now, instead of having just the population of bloggers and Twitter users that had been following the events of #midyear, you now have every email reading agent across the country calling their clients to give them yesterday's news (that as of this writing is not true).

Nice one NAR - even if this is coming in the next few days, now was not the time to announce this and cause even more confusion.

My opnion = NAR press release FAIL!

(I have decided to keep this a public post on both my ActiveRain blog and my sanantoniorealestaterockstar.com site in order to help consumers see both that this announcement is not true (hopefully it will be soon) and so they understand what a tangled mess we agents sometimes have to go through to deliver them quailty reliable real estate information.)