It may just be our lucky year.
The fiance will need to get a new car in May when his lease is up, and we’re continually kicking around the idea of buying a house by the end of the year. The car is going to happen no matter what, but the house depends on a number of factors, including socking away more money and being able to come to terms with giving up most of our savings for a down payment and closing costs.
But we may be getting help from the federal government, thanks to the stimulus plan that’s now being worked over by the Senate.
A tax incentive allowing car buyers to deduct sales tax and loan interest on payments this year sounds pretty good to me, because we’ve already decided we’d like to finance the new car, rather than lease. That way, when my car is ready to go to that big junkyard in the sky in another 5 years (it’s already 5 years old, hopefully it makes it past 10 ::fingers crossed::) and we need to replace it, we’ll only have one car payment at a time since the other car would be paid off by then.
Today, another amendment was added to the stimulus bill, allowing those purchasing a new home this year to selling houses in 1974, that’s what I was doing to feed my family and make a living.”
The tax credit would let buyers claim 10% of the purchase price of a home, up to $15,000. Since the homes we’d be looking at would cost no more than $350,000 (and that’s the “high” figure for us), we’d definitely appreciate being able to deduct that $15,000 for the year, in addition to mortgage interest and property taxes.
These incentives would definitely make us consider our homebuying options.
