It’s now official – Bush signed the Housing bill that was passed by the Senate on Saturday. It has numerous items in it, but the most important ones for buyers and sellers are in our previous posts. We’ll have more detail on the bill in the days ahead…

The House of Representatives this week passed a landmark, 700+ page bill. It’s not law yet, but gets passed on to the Senate. The two houses of Congress will reconcile differences (maybe this weekend), and submit the final bill to the White House. For a long time, Pres. Bush said he’d veto the bill, but yesterday he said he’d sign the bill into law.

There are multiple parts to the bill. Here’s the link for an index of the bill. (Note: that link takes you to The Library of Congress Thomas search page. Type in HR 3221.EAH2 in the Search field. Put a space between R and 3, but no other spaces. Click on the link for Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (Engrossed Amendment as Agreed to by House). We’re not going to delve into the big macro items (shoring up Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc), but focus on what elements of the housing bill look like for different constituencies. Following this post are 3 separate posts the bill addresses:

• For homeowners that may be facing foreclosure.
• For first time home buyers.
• For buyers

Remember – these aren’t law yet. But it would appear it’s getting much closer.

The section of the housing bill designed to help troubled homeowners is “Title IV – Hope for Homeowners”. We’ve cut and pasted key highlights from the House’s version of the bill, and added some notes and comments. Read the rest of this article »

The main part of this proposed bill affecting first time home buyers is a $7,500 tax credit, but it’s not a grant or a gift. Ultimately, it gets paid back over a 15 year term. The bill defines a first time home buyer as someone who hasn’t owned a home in the previous 3 years.

To see the actual language, at the index to the bill (see main post above), scroll way down to Title I, Housing Tax Incentives, then down to Subtitle B, Single Family Housing.

Several things help and hinder buyers in the proposed housing bill the House passed:

• The limit for conforming loans will be raised to $625,000 (right now it’s at $729k and change). These are loans that can be purchased by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and re-sold to investors.
• For FHA loans, the minimum down payment goes up to 3.5%
• Prohibition against seller funded down payment assistance. This would appear to eliminate programs like Nehemiah.