I'm hearing a few rumblings of the tax credit being extended. Anyone hear of this? Well, I'm going to assume that the Credit is finished on December 1, 2009. That being the case, I wonder what the impact of this will be on the housing market?
In our area, Lexington, KY, we have had tremendous success with this program. It is this program, that I feel, that has single handedly enabled the market here to trend successfully upwards. There is a domino effect to this. If a first timer is buying a home, the person who is selling it will buy a home the next size up and this should continue on up the chain a couple of times. I know the numbers of end buyers fall off at the top as retirees sell their home and move to florida or retirement homes and others are buying short sell homes. So there isn't a house for house movement from first time buyer home all the way up to million dollar listings but it definitely has a trickle down effect.
So when this is gone what is going to happen? Of course this will occur in the winter which is a traditionally slow time for any sort of housing transactions(sell or rental). But what can we expect next spring? Will the numbers be down? UP? Will we just see a small drop in comparable sales as the economy strengthens? Will it be off 25%? How are we going to get first timers into the market if their is still uncertainty with their jobs and they don't have that 8k incentive?
What are your thoughts? Where do you think we'll be at the end of December? And at the end of April? What will have changed?