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Finding — and financing — the perfect Pinellas County home

Stephanie Henningsen

I met Stephanie a while back, and she told me a story about how she was able to buy her own home, even though she was a single woman at the time living on one paycheck.  Not only was she able to buy the home, but she was also able to finance an extensive renovation that brought back a fine old home in St. Petersburg that deserved to be saved. I asked her if she would describe the process for my blog. Here is the first installment — there will be more coming.

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By STEPHANIE HENNINGSEN

I’ve always been attracted to older homes, the homes you find in historical neighborhoods immediately outside the downtown areas of municipalities around the country. It’s the details that draw me in – lots of windows, high ceilings, wood floors, crown molding.

Many of these remodeled homes come with a price tag that is way out of my range. However, I found a way to live in my dream home (complete with wood floors!) without going broke in the process.

A friend told me about the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA), an advocacy program designed to help:

• Homeowners refinance mortgages
• Low-income families find an affordable home
• Turn over neighborhoods by offering mortgages that allow homeowners who make above a certain income to buy a run-down home and remodel it.

NACA helps potential buyers through the following steps to prepare them for homeownership.

Once I had completed these steps, I was ready for the next adventure – finding my dream home.

Tags: first time homebuyer, pinellas county, real estate, St. Petersburg

Pinellas County homebuyers: Don’t miss the $8,000 first time homeowner tax credit

    More than half of the people who plan to buy a home in the U.S. this year are first-time homebuyers. And ALL of them should look into the $8,000 tax credit that is being offered to first-time homebuyers this year by the federal government
 
      This is a pretty exciting to for first-time homebuyers to get into the market, what with very low prices and historically low interest rates. The $8,000 tax credit is just icing on the cake. It’s hard to imagine that such a “perfect storm” of home-buying advantages will come together again, at least in the lifetimes of most of us.

      Are people really aware of the first time homeowner tax credit? Apparently so – the IRS says that of all the 2008 tax returns filed by March 6, more than a half-million returns claimed the first-time home buyer credit.

      If the tax credit sounds good to you, don’t wait too long – it is only available until Dec. 1, 2009.

 Here are the nine most important things you need to know about the tax credit:

     1. The credit is available to all first-time buyers of any kind of home, new or re-sale.
 First time home buyers are defined as people who have not owned a residence during the three years prior to the purchase date.

     2. The tax credit is an amount of money equal to 10 percent of the home’s purchase price, up to a credit of $8,000.

     3. The income limit for a single taxpayer is $75,000; for married taxpayers filing jointly, income must not exceed $150,000.

     4. If you exceed the income limits, you may qualify for a partial tax credit.

     5. The tax credit does not have to be repaid. Previous tax credits were really interest-free loans.

     6. People who buy homes and claim the tax credit must use the home as a principal residence for at least three years. Those who fail to do that may have to pay the credit amount back to the government.

     7. Claim the tax credit on your federal income tax return by using IRS Form 5405. No other application or form is necessary.

     8. The credit may be claimed even if you have little or no federal income tax liability. An example: You had withholding in the amount of $4,000, but ended up owing taxes totaling $5,000. Normally, you would owe the government another $1,000 on top of what was withheld. However, if you purchased a home and claimed the tax credit, the IRS would send you a check for $7,000 – the $8,000 tax credit minus your $1,000 tax liability.

     9. The tax credit is a dollar-for-dollar reduction in your tax liability. In other words, if you owed the IRS $8,000 in income taxes for 2008 and you claimed the $8,000 tax credit, you would owe the IRS nothing.

Want to know more? Take a few minutes to listen to an expert – Robert Dietz, the tax economist for the National Association of Home Builders. Click on the YouTube icon above.

Tags: Add new tag, first time homebuyer, pinellas county, tax credit