HOME BUYERS COULD MISS $8,000 OPPORTUNITY

HOME BUYERS COULD MISS $8,000 OPPORTUNITY


WASHINGTON, April 13--The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) is doing everything possible to make sure that first-time home buyers--who make up more than half of American adults planning to buy a home in 2009, according to a recent Move.com survey--know they may qualify for up to an $8,000 tax credit.

"We are pulling out all the stops to let potential buyers know they are in the midst of a true buyer's market," said Joe Robson, chairman of the NAHB and a home builder from Tulsa, Okla. "With the first-time home buyer tax credit, historically low mortgage rates, very affordable home prices and the great selection of homes to choose from, this is the opportunity of a lifetime for many Americans."

Out of all the 2008 tax returns already filed as of March 6, nearly 568,000 have claimed a first-time home buyer credit according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, which audits the IRS.

NAHB has created a number of resources to help Americans understand current conditions in the housing market and the advantages of homeownership. The cornerstone is the www.FederalHousingTaxCredit.com Web site, which provides detailed information about the tax credit and has received more than 1.3 million visits in less than two months.

An in-depth video interview with NAHB's staff tax specialist that provides answers to the most frequently-asked consumer questions about the credit has been viewed on YouTube more than 13,000 times since it was posted March 5.

"The rapidly growing popularity of social networking Web sites makes YouTube, Facebook and Twitter ideal communication vehicles to reach technology-savvy first-time home buyers," said Robson.

A brochure for consumers entitled "Opportunity Knocks for Home Buyers" explains the long-term advantages of buying a home, and provides charts showing examples of typical federal income tax savings through the first five years of homeownership. The brochure can be downloaded from NAHB's Web site at www.nahb.org/opportunityknocks.

Eager buyers who don't want to wait for a brand new home to be built have the opportunity to move in much more quickly than in the past, due to a 12.2 month inventory of new homes on the market. But they need to act quickly. The U.S. Commerce Department reported that sales of newly built, single-family homes showed a 4.7 percent gain in February, rising for the first time in seven months.

Another reason buyers need to act soon is the limited time frame of the credit. Qualified buyers must buy the home on or after January 1, 2009 and before December 1, 2009. To learn more about the $8,000 tax credit, go to www.FederalHousingTaxCredit.com.

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ABOUT NAHB: The National Association of Home Builders is a Washington, D.C.-based trade association representing more than 200,000 members involved in home building, remodeling, multifamily construction, property management, subcontracting, design, housing finance, building product manufacturing and other aspects of residential and light commercial construction. Known as "the voice of the housing industry," NAHB is affiliated with more than 800 state and local home builders associations around the country. NAHB's builder members will construct about 80 percent of the new housing units projected for 2009.

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