First-time home buyers in Oklahoma shrugging off $7,500 federal help
First-time home buyers in Oklahoma shrugging off $7,500 federal help
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By Richard Mize
Published: September 6, 2008
Want-to-be first-time home buyers in Oklahoma seem to be shrugging off the $7,500 federal tax credit included in the big housing recovery law enacted in July, but another round of state housing bond money has people's attention, Realtors and lenders said.
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$40M released Sept. 23
The agency will release $40 million in programs to allow first-time buyers to borrow, and to get 3-percent down-payment assistance, on Sept. 23.
Through its OHFA Advantage program, the agency provides low-interest, 30-year, fixed-rate home loans for qualified buyers anywhere in the state.
Interest rates have not been set for loans from this pool of money, which will include funding for the OHFA Shield/OHFA 4 Teachers programs for law officers, firefighters and educators, Mangham said. It will be the second release this year.
The agency released $30 million, loaned at a rate of 6.79 percent, in June.
Credit? What tax credit?
Lyne Tracy, a mortgage banker with BOk Mortgage, a department of Bank of Oklahoma, said they hadn't had any borrowers buy because they could get the credit, "but I have had Realtors who are getting information on it for buyers who have already closed.”
Neither Aimie R. Dauphin at Universal Mortgage Corp. nor Mark Harry of Oklahoma Fidelity Bank, both in Oklahoma City, said they had seen much interest in the credit.
"I have been somewhat surprised at the collective yawn that the $7,500 tax credit is receiving,” said Scott Senner, a mortgage consultant with First Commercial Bank in Edmond.
‘An interest-free loan'
There are exceptions, but the gist of it is this:
Buyers who buy a house on or after April 9 this year and before July 1 next year — any condition, any price, anywhere in the country — are eligible for a credit of up to $7,500 off their tax bill for this year or next. If the tax bill is less than the credit, the buyer gets the difference. It has to be paid back over the next 15 years.
Some want-to-be buyers are balking at claiming the credit because it has to be paid back, said Harry, who is vice president of residential lending for Oklahoma Fidelity Bank, the Oklahoma City branch of Wichita, Kan.-based Fidelity Bank.
Harry said loan shoppers have told him, "‘It is not a gift. It is a credit and I have to pay it back,' to which I have said, ‘It's an interest-free loan for 15 years. I would have done this.' ”
Senner said, "Personally, if someone is going to give me $7,500 and let me pay it back over 15 years with no interest, I am jumping on that deal.”
Related Topics:
Public Finance, Domestic Policy, Political Policy, Politics, Business, Taxes, Economic Policy, Tax Policy, Real Estate
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