New York state will offer first-time homebuyers a new tax credit worth one-fifth of their yearly mortgage interest costs, building on the U.S. government’s program to spur the housing market, Governor David Paterson said on Monday.

The state’s mortgage agency, which helps low- and moderate-income individuals buy homes, will run the new Mortgage Credit Certificate program. The tax credit will only be offered to people who qualify under the agency’s income and purchase price limits, the Democratic governor said in a statement. People who get their mortgage from the state agency will not qualify.

 The federal $8,000 tax credit for people who are buying their first home expires on November 30.
New York’s metropolitan housing market has held up better during the downturn than others around the nation.
The New York index is still more than 73 percent higher when compared to January 2000, according to Standard & Poor’s/S&P Case-Shiller Home Price indices for May, although it has fallen nearly 20 percent from the June 2006 peak.
New York is the first state to offer this kind of tax credit, a Paterson spokesman said, though other states offer extra help to home buyers. For example, California in March began offering a $10,000 credit for new home purchases.
A New York homeowner paying 5.5 percent interest on a $150,000 mortgage would pay about $8,200 in interest in the first year, according to Paterson’s estimates. The new state tax credit would be worth $1,640, he said.
The remaining 80 percent of the mortgage interest will still qualify as an itemized tax deduction on federal returns.
New York will use about $80 million of its private activity bond program to pay for $20 million of the certificates.
The Internal Revenue Service sets limits on how much tax-free debt states can sell for private activities.

 http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Housing/idUSTRE5794HT20090810

There was something that always bothered Rene Galvin when she walked in the front door of her new condo - an eye-watering, rotten egg smell that clung to the four walls and everything contained within them, from the furniture to her carpet and clothes.
She could never quite put her finger on the cause of the foul odor that seemed to pervade every pore. “I’d just stand there, look around and say to myself: ‘One day, I’ll find out whatever it is that died inside these walls’,” she says.
But there were further problems to come; mirrors that corroded around the edges, drains that rusted on the baths, pitted faucets, the television, computer, dishwasher, coffee pot, telephones, and air-conditioning system that all inexplicably broke down. Even the treasured gold-dipped necklace she wore around her neck turned black. Then there were the headaches, throat and sinus troubles.
“I had no idea what was going on. I thought ‘Boy, the Florida air sure is bad’,” she says with a wry laugh.
Humour, though, is not something that comes easily these days when she talks about her $500,000 home in Bonita Springs, Florida, that now sits empty after it was found to contain contaminated drywall from China.
The discovery of sulfur-emitting compounds within the imported construction materials has sparked a national investigation, numerous lawsuits, and a scandal that is feared to have affected as many as 100,000 homes, a majority so far in Florida. Reparations could run into the billions of dollars.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0404/p99s01-usgn.html

About 12,000 houses in a five county viewing area have a “for sale” sign in their front garden.

If you are selling your home, how do you make your home stand out from the rest? One way is to put a virtual tour of your home online.

The virtual tour offers potential buyers a sense of being inside the home, you can almost feel the warmth from the fireplace.

We’ve all been hearing that now might not be the best time to sell your home, but realtor Doug Clifton says that’s not necessarily the case for eastern North Carolina. “We hear the gloom and doom of the housing market and our area of the world isn’t really like that; it’s true that we’re slower than we normally are, but houses are still selling.”

And some are turning to even more creative ways to sell those houses by using the internet.

“Any seller that’s out there, that has a property to sell, this is the way to go because the internet, world wide web, you’re going to get world wide,” said real estate investor MariAnn Harvey.

Harvey buys and sells homes for a living, so she thought, why not market her homes on YouTube. “We’re such a community of people who want everything fast and they want it at their fingertips and of course the computer is the fastest way to do it.”

With a little help from her son, she discovered how simple it is to make a virtual home tour.

Dara Dimitri posted a home tour on YouTube. “Most other houses online just have a few pictures to look at so you don’t get a flavor of what the whole house looks like.”

So Dara Dimitri decided to put a tour of her home online, and it seems to be paying off. “We have had several extra showings that I don’t think we would have gotten otherwise. I have the house listed on Craigslist with a link to the virtual tour so several showings have come as a result of that listing.”

http://www.wwaytv3.com/node/13962

For every 500,000 people becoming unemployed there will be a further 20,000 repossessions, says a new report from CB Richard Ellis.

‘Loss of income through unemployment is the major contributory factor towards arrears and repossessions,’ says the report.

The Government support for mortgage interest payment kicks in 13 weeks after being made unemployed.

The report highlights the most groups most vulnerable to repossession being the sub-prime market and the buy-to-let borrowers. ‘High mortgage rates are a particular problem for borrowers coming to the end of their current mortgage deal. These homeowners are finding it difficult to obtain a mortgage on comparable terms and may not be able to afford the higher rates,’ it says.

‘There are a large tranche of vulnerable borrowers which could increase the severity of the problem,’ the report concludes.

This report was found at: www.countrylife.co.uk/news/property