FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Isakson Urges Senate to Extend, Expand Home Buyer Tax Credit
      ‘It Is Imperative We Retain the Momentum We Have Gained’

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., today testified before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs about the need to further restore the housing market and energize housing demand by expanding the first-time home buyer tax credit passed by Congress earlier this year.

“During my 33-year career in real estate, I experienced many challenges and difficult markets, but never anything like the current housing market in America. America’s families have lost trillions of dollars in home equity as home values have fallen, and in some markets, continue to fall today,” Isakson said. “The current home buyer tax credit is set to expire on November 30, and we are approaching the worst three months of the year for the housing market. It is imperative that we retain the momentum we have gained as a result of the current credit and go into the spring market with the increased consumer confidence necessary for establishing a viable market.”

Isakson believes the current first-time home buyer tax credit has made a difference. However, he believes the real housing recession is not with first-time home buyers but in the “trade-in” or “move-up” market in which citizens are putting off purchasing their next home. 

Isakson plans to introduce an amendment to legislation extending unemployment benefits that would extend and expand the current home buyer tax credit. Isakson’s amendment would keep the amount of the credit at $8,000, but would remove the first-time home buyer requirement, extend the tax credit until June 30, 2010, and raise the income limits to $150,000 for an individual or $300,000 for a couple.

For purchases made in 2010, taxpayers would be able to claim the credit on their 2009 income tax return. Home buyers would not have to repay the credit, provided the home remains their principal residence for 36 months after the purchase date. However, the 36 month recapture provision would not apply in the case of a member of the Armed Forces on active duty who moves pursuant to a military order and incident to a permanent change of station.  

The Joint Committee on Taxation has scored the amendment at $16.7 billion over five years.

“Expanding the tax credit has a cost, and it is a significant amount of money,” Isakson said. “However, it is less than 3 percent of the amount of the stimulus, and we know from what has happened in the last nine months that the home buyer tax credit works.”

Isakson also cited his experience during the housing recession of the mid-1970s when Congress in 1975 passed a $2,000 home buyer tax credit, which drove buyers back to the market and ended the housing recession within a year.

Isakson spent more than three decades in the real estate business, beginning his business career in 1967 when he opened the first Cobb County, Ga., office of a small, family-owned real estate business, Northside Realty. Isakson later served as president of Northside for 20 years, presiding over the company’s growth into the largest independent residential real estate brokerage company in the Southeast and one of the largest in America.

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