In February, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009, otherwise known as this year’s stimulus bill. One small part of this bill allows first time home buyers (anyone who hasn’t owned a home in the past three years) to qualify for a $8,000 tax credit.
For individuals or families hoping for some help to move into a house within their reach of affordability, this is an amazing offer. Not only does it help home buyers, it will in theory help stimulate the real estate industry by keeping housing prices from falling further and allowing more people to afford to buy homes.
Even better, this year’s credit does not need to be paid back to the government unlike last year’s $7,500 credit for first time home buyers. The rules for claiming the home buyer credit are not as helpful as they could be, however. If you qualify for the credit, you need to buy the house first, using funds you have or a loan, and then later apply for the credit either in an amended 2008 tax return or your 2009 tax return.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development wants this benefit to assist home buyers differently. HUD is pushing for the rules to be changed to allow lenders to borrow against the tax credit. If the buyer qualifies, he or she can receive their tax credit up front to be used for completing the down payment or paying closing costs.
If HUD models the first time home buyer’s loan after similar programs offered by a select number of states, the loan would be interest-free as long as it is paid back within a reasonable amount of time. I imagine the grace period would be determined when the rules are set if HUD is successful in getting the rules changed.
(Or… What on Earth is an Affidavit of Financial Hardship?)
Today the U.S. Treasury announced the details of their “Making Home Affordable” Loan Modifications. This link to the financialstability.gov Web page about the plan should help you answer whether you are eligible to receive help with your “underwater” mortgage.
Here’s a good summary from a PDF linked from the above Web site that helps explain who the program is for:
The Home Affordable Refinance program will be available to 4 to 5 million homeowners who have a solid payment history on an existing mortgage owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Normally, these borrowers would be unable to refinance because their homes have lost value, pushing their current loan-
to-value ratios above 80%. Under the Home Affordable Refinance program, many of them will now be eligible to refinance their loan to take advantage of today’s lower mortgage rates or to refinance an adjustable-rate mortgage into a more stable mortgage, such as a 30-year fixed rate loan.
The one thing I found while reading about this that I wasn’t familiar with is a requirement to sign an Affidavit of Financial Hardship. Googling for it resulted in a number of State-specific PDF forms, but I did find a generic Affidavit created by Fannie Mae so you can at least have an idea of what to expect.
In the real estate boom, many homebuyers extended themselves financially to buy a house that may have been beyond their means. With the exuberant market, people were encouraged to buy with low introductory interest rates and interest-only loans, the belief that their income would increase to meet their payments, predictions that real estate prices would never fall. As should have been predicted, adjustable-rate mortgages have adjusted and monthly mortgage payments are higher and income hasn’t increased. More people have fallen behind with their mortgage payments.
With declining home prices and interest-only mortgages, more families owe more on their mortgages than their home is worth. Financially, it could make sense, at least in the short term, to walk away. In this state of negative equity, abandoning the mortgage and the house would actually be financially beneficial.
Here is why:
If the house you purchased for $400,000 is now worth only $300,000, but thanks to an interest-only mortgage, you still owe $400,000, your net worth increase by $100,000 simply by wiping the mortgage and the house from your balance sheet. Of course, if this is your primary residence, you still need a place to live. But from this point you could buy a more affordable house or rent for a while.
There is a major drawback to abandoning your responsibilities. If you walk away, you will trash your credit rating, making it more difficult or impossible to rent an apartment, qualify for a new mortgage, and perhaps get a job.
Freakonomics addresses this dilemma (if it is a dilemma at all):
My new wife and I bought our home in Temecula, Calif., as a place for us to start a family… We bought the house in early 2007 for $445,000 and put $50,000 down… Now that the market has crashed in our area, our house is worth about $250,000.
Although our monthly mortgage payments are high, we can still afford to make them, but should we? If we walk away and buy another house with my parents cosigning on the loan (or even just rented a place), we could save almost $1,000 a month in payments and maybe even have positive equity in the next few years. If we stay in our home, we’ll be stuck for many years, and if the market ever does get back to what we paid, the best option we’ll have will be to break even with a sale and then buy another house with an inflated value.
I’m certainly concerned about the ethical side of it, and know that walking away is not “the right thing to do.” But my question is from a purely economic perspective and I’d be saving a significant amount of money by lowering my monthly payments and erasing $140,000 in debt.
What should this family do? Are there ethical considerations, or is it simply a question of math? Credit rating aside, the financially responsible option may be to walk away, accept your mistakes, and start over. But if people can simply walk away from their obligations, what incentive is there for people to buy houses they can afford and work hard to continue making payments responsibly?
New laws are now in place to help families facing foreclosure, which should encourage people to choose options other than abandonment. But they may not help every family that finds itself in this predicament. What should they do?
If real estate is truly the root of the economic recession, then this new proposal from President Obama should help. The plan calls for $75 billion to help 9 million homeowners who can no longer afford their monthly mortgage payments and are at risk for foreclosure.
Here is how this plan would help.
If you owe more than 80% of your home’s value, this plan will help you refinance your mortgage. How will the value of your home be determined? Will they use the purchase price, current estimated market price based on other similar homes sold recently (which could be considerably lower), or some appraised value?
If you’re at risk for foreclosure, the $75 billion would be used to subsidize your mortgage interest rate. This would lower the interest rate you see while the lenders still receive their money from the government. The goal is to keep payments below 31% of income. But what happens when income suddenly drops to zero through the loss of a job? 31% of zero is still zero.
If you declare bankruptcy, a judge will have the authority to modify your mortgage. This is good news for consumers with no other options.
There are a number of other measures that affect lenders rather than consumers. The plan offers incentives for lenders to help at-risk borrowers who are not yet late with payments. $10 million will be set aside to protect lenders against further home price declines.
At this stage, this is just a proposal. The Senate and the House of Representatives will both draw up their own versions of this proposal and eventually agree on a bill. This could take some time, and as sentiment turns away from helping citizens directly, particularly if it is widely believed that homeowners generally find themselves in trouble due to their own choices and actions, there may be a struggle to turn this proposal into an agreed-upon law.
When is your house a liability? Does the fact that you have a mortgage make your house a liability? Or do you have to owe more than the house is worth? What is a liability, anyway?
Well, it depends. Looking at your house from a financial perspective, which you should do because if you’re like many people in the United States, most of your wealth is “tied up” in your house, it is not a liability. A liability is defined as something you owe to someone else. You do not owe the house to the person from who you purchased it, nor do you owe the house to the bank. You may owe the balance of your mortgage.
A house, like any other object that comes into your possession, is classified as an asset. An asset is something you own. A house has a value. Whether you assign the value as the price at which you purchased the house or the price at which you believe you can sell the house, that amount is how much your house is worth.
You can offset the value of the asset with the value of the mortgage, your liability. Your house, an asset, subtracted by your remaining mortgage, your liability, results in your wealth due to your house. That’s commonly called your “equity,” but that has a murky definition, too.
So why do so many people claim that your house is a liability if it’s clearly incorrect from a financial standpoint? Most of this stems from one personal finance “guru.” Robert Kiyosaki, a successful marketer of products, believes an asset is anything that provides cash to you, while a liability takes your cash away. These are not the traditional meaning of the words, but this establishes a framework for the ideas Kiyosaki tries to sell. Kioysaki believes you should strive to increase the assets that provide positive cash flow (Kiyosaki-assets) and reduce the assets that require negative cash flow (Kiyosaki-liabilities).
The concept is sound, but Kiyosaki’s use of the words “asset” and “liability” angers those of us who understand finance and prefer not to confuse the general public by redefining words. But taking a step back from finance, consider this:
There is at least one other legitimate definition or “sense” of liability. In a broader sense, a liability is anything that puts an individual at a disadvantage. Yes, debt is a liability, both financially and generally. You may love your children, but if they’re chronic behavior problems, they may be a liability.
If you own a business that makes millions of dollars each year — and wouldn’t that be nice — chances are you could sell that business if you need to, and command a very high price. That business is a good example of an asset (even if the business itself contains assets such as buildings and liabilities such as debt). But if that business is legally risky, and there is possibility of being arrested for operating it, you could argue that the business is a liability to your ability to continue living freely.
Once you start looking at the big picture, the line between asset and liability, usually neatly drawn down the center of the balance sheet, looks a little fuzzier.
Ask anyone with a financial background whether your house is an asset or liability, and they will unequivocally tell you that it is an asset, contributing to the total of your net worth. but that definition only takes you so far. If owning your house prevents you from using your money for better purposes, you could argue that it is a liability in the broader sense of the word.
Just don’t try to put the value of the house on the right side of your balance sheet.
Update: In response to this post, Mighty Bargain Hunter shares his thoughts about the practicality of Kiyosaki’s redefinitions.
In 2003, John Talbott predicted the housing market crash, in a way. It’s true that when the real estate market is exuberantly celebrating an uncharacteristic increase in home prices, you can predict a crash and just wait for it to come true. Here’s what Talbott, a former Vice President at Goldman Sachs and author of The Coming Crash in the Housing Markets (2003) and Sell Now!: The End of the Housing Bubble (2006), said in an article on CNN Money in August 2003 about the “worst-case scenario” in housing.
… Rising interest rates drive down home prices, leaving an alarming number of homeowners — particularly those who’ve cashed out or borrowed against their equity — holding more debt than their house is worth. If they sell, they would actually owe money.
Under this scenario, foreclosure rates jump as high as 5 percent, pushing down home prices and wreaking financial havoc all the way to the top of the housing food chain at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. With the collapse of these financial behemoths, investors would lose money, taxpayers would be stuck paying for a bailout and confidence in the banking industry would be as good as gone.
And your home? A 30 percent drop in home values isn’t inconceivable.
“It’s 1929 all over again,” said Talbott… “This is big Depression-type stuff.”
It didn’t play out exactly as Talbott predicted. The latest housing crisis probably didn’t occur due to high interest rates. The primary driver was more likely excessive speculation; as prices continued to rise throughout a bubble, more investors wanted to get into the market with the goal of selling at a higher price. Credit was freely available, even to risky individuals, because banks felt they could sell the debt to investors on the other side of the coin, passing off the risk to another party.
The signs were there.
Your home: Worst-case scenario, Sarah Max, CNN Money, August 8, 2003
This text refers to the original $15,000 tax credit amendment for all homebuyers which has now been superseded. The tax credit is now $8,000 and is available for people who purchase a house between January 1, 2009 and November 30, 2009. Here is how to claim the $8,000 home buyer tax credit on your 2008 or 2009 tax return.
As senators jockey for position and work to coming to an agreement that will best help the American people and the overall economy, the stimulus plan originally pushed forward by Barack Obama is changing. Last night, the Senate voted to include an amendment to the bill which would provide a tax credit for homebuyers. If the bill passes the Senate, and if this amendment remains included when the Senate and House negotiate, and if the President signs the bill into law, anyone who purchases a house after the bill is signed into law will be entitled to a tax credit.
The credit would be 10% of the purchase price of the house, up to $15,000. This idea is modeled after a $2,000 tax credit for homebuyers that helped the country rise from a recession in 1975. The credit would be spread over two years. For example, if you buy a house with a purchase price of $300,000, you would qualify for the maximum credit of $15,000. The first year you claim the credit, you would receive $7,500, and you would receive the remaining $7,500 the next year.
Additionally, in its current form, the requirement to repay the credit over time will be waived. The estimated cost of this amendment is $18.5 billion. This credit, which was once set aside for first-time homebuyers, would now apply to anyone who purchases a house, including investors, speculators, flippers, and any family struggling to afford a place to call home.
So does it make sense to go out and buy a house this year if you weren’t planning to, just to receive this tax credit? I’m not so sure. The main driver for buying a house — one in which you plan to live, not one you with which you plan to invest, or more accurately, speculate — should be necessity. Incentives for purchasing an asset stands to prop up the price of that asset beyond the price the market sets for it on its own. This boost helps real estate agents and investors more than families.
Please keep in mind that the plans for this credit are subject to change until it the bill is signed into law by the President of the United States.
Are you more inclined to buy a house this year with the knowledge that you will receive up to a $15,000 tax credit if this bill is signed into law as it currently stands?
Update: the current text of this amendment stipulates that only houses purchased after the bill is signed into law will qualify for the $15,000 tax credit. The final rules will depend on what the Senate and House of Representatives agree to before sending the bill to the President.
February 11 Update: As of this moment, the idea of the $15,000 tax credit may be nothing more than a dream. According to reports following the compromise between the House of Representatives and the Senate, this benefit has been “significantly reduced.” It may be another day before we know exactly what that means.
February 12 Update: The $15,000 tax credit has been confirmed as being “significantly reduced” to $8,000 for first-time homebuyers only and only houses purchased before the end of November will qualify. This $8,000 tax credit will not need to be repaid, unlike the current $7,500 first-time homebuyers credit.
February 13 Update: The Senate and House of Representatives have both passed the compromise version of the stimulus bill. Read the complete stimulus bill here, and you’ll be a step ahead of many of the congressmen who didn’t have a chance to read it before voting.
As Barack Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus plan makes its way through Congress, the Senate is taking the opportunity to modify the bill with the intent of providing assistance to the lagging housing market. Rather than allow the market to continue correcting itself, the government would like to encourage consumers to jump into the market, allowing prices to begin climbing again.
Republicans and Democrats in the Senate would like to see 30-year fixed-rate mortgages at 4%, improvements to the first-time home buyer credit, and a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., told reporters last week that he would like a provision in the stimulus package that would impose a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures. Dodd may consider other housing measures as well. (CNN)
People facing foreclosure are unlikely to qualify for a typical mortgage refinance, a tool for those who have been able to pay their monthly bills but who would like to take advantage of lower rates. A 90-day moratorium would give those in danger of losing their homes more time to negotiate with lenders. There are some instances in which this might improve the situation.
I can imagine that someone who has been out of work and unable to pay the mortgage — usually the last payment to be affected when an emergency arises — could be given more time to find a new job. But in this economy, is three months enough time for someone to get back on his or her feet?
The goal of economic stimulus is to prevent another Great Depression or a repeat of Japan’s extended slump during the 1990s. The theory seems to be for the government to throw everything it can at the economic downturn, including the kitchen sink, and see what sticks.
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