Home Ownership

I, like most people, have always hated dealing with tax stuff. Such a pain. That was, until I read about a little something I like to call the Federal Housing Tax Credit. This is the most amazing thing in the world to me at this moment.

Chris and I have been racking our brains trying to figure out a way to come up with around $3000 for a down payment on a house. We found a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house that we love for about $95,000 which would make our mortgage payment less than or the same as if we were to rent a 2 bedroom duplex. Of course at $95,000 you can assume it needs some updating and fixing up. That's the sort of thing we can do down the line when we have the extra money though. As long as it's livable and there's no damage that will costs us out the butthole to repair, then we're pretty set on this house....at least what we've seen of it.

Anyway, my point is this... This tax credit for new home buyers expires on July 1st. That means we have to close before that date to get the $7500.

The $7500 is basically a 0% interest loan from the government. You pay it back $500 a year over the next 15 years and I'm pretty sure they take it from your taxes. So if you'd normally get back $200 from your federal tax returns, you'll owe them $300 instead.

This is such a good freaking deal. You can even work it out to get the $7500 before you buy the house so you can use it for your down payment, but that's complicated and weird so I'm not sure we'd do that.

So I've worked it all out in my head. Plans are being made. I won't go into anymore detail about it because I'm sure it's pretty boring for anyone that's not interested in buying a house anytime soon.

I'm just saying....I'm getting really excited!