If you’ve been judiciously saving up for your first home but didn’t make it in time for the $8,000 tax credit deadline on November 30, here’s an early Christmas present for you: The incentive has been extended through April 30, 2010.
The terms of the tax credit have been expanded to include current homeowners who meet the income requirements (up to $125,000 for singles and $225,000 for marrieds) and have lived in their residence for five consecutive years out of the past eight. And the credit can’t be used to buy property that costs more than $800,000 — not that many homebuyers in this income bracket are eyeing that kind of real estate.
If you’re a low-income house hunter, there’s even more good news about programs that make homeownership more attractive. Bank programs like HSBC’s First Home Club are currently offering to match every dollar an eligible participant saves on a whopping 4-to-1 basis, up to a grant of $7,500. So that means if you saved the maximum of $1,875 over a 10- to 24-month period, you’d walk away with a sweet housing grant of $9,375.
That particularly generous program is valid only in New Jersey and New York, but you can search for other matched savings programs (also known as individual development accounts) by state in this database.
