Buy my house, win $15,000 from the Fed!

Hey, you want an easy $15,000? Just buy my house which is currently for sale, and you will be eligible for a $15,000 tax credit as approved by the Senate if the House and President Obama approve the stimulus bill as it stands. This replaces the $7,500 tax credit from 2008 that was for first time buyers and had to be repaid. Now anybody purchasing a home in 2009 is eligible for up to $15,000 (or 10% of the house price, whichever is lower) and the credit does not need to be repaid. And, no, I will not consider selling our house for under $150,000 so you would receive the maximum $15,000 for buying our house. Note that this is a tax credit which comes out of your federal income taxes, so you would typically not see the money upfront, it would just reduce your federal tax bill by $7,500 for the next two years. Note, however, that Missouri did pass a bill that would give you a $6,750 check upfront to cover the $7,500 first time buyer credit, so I would hope they would do the same for this improved bill. The big loser? Folks like myself who bought a house last year and were not first time buyers. No tax credit for those of us who were brave enough to buy back in early 2008 before the financial markets nosedived. However, if this new bill gets approved and helps convince someone to buy our house at a reasonable price, we will benefit from the legislation. Come on somebody, buy our house!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trying out the L'Ecole Culinaire Presentation Room restaurant

Image
We had been seeing the ads for the restaurant at L'Ecole Culinaire and since we live so close by we thought we would try it out. We had always enjoyed dining out at cooking or hotel schools like the CHIC in Chicago and the Statler at Cornell where we went to college. Since we still love to go out and eat here in St. Louis , we ventured over to their restaurant on the first day they were open for lunch. The first thing we noticed is that they do not have much parking! They really need to let patrons know where they are supposed to park. The restaurant itself is small but very well attended. There was one fellow who kept straightening all the centerpieces and place settings on the tables, and we always saw one or two student workers milling about. The lunch menu was small and the choices did not appear overly "gourmet". The special of the day was a bison burger stuffed with cheese, and other choices picked by my group included a club sandwich, a "margherita" pi...
Read more

BMI & BMR Calculator (Body Mass Index and Basal Metabolic Rate)

Image
My wife has been researching type 2 diabetes and recently checked a book out of the library which included a body mass index (BMI) chart much like the one pictured here. Whereas it is fairly easy to follow, I, of course, think it must be converted to an online calculator! However, when I checked the Internet, there were already a billion of them so I had to make one that was different. So my lovely BMI BMR calculator accepts either inches or centimeters for your height and pounds or kilograms for your weight and calculates not only your BMI, but also your BMR (basal metabolic rate) which determines how many calories you should consume! So I made a spiffy "all in one" healthy body indicator calculator which not only determines how underweight or overweight you are, but also tells you how many calories you should consume to maintain or improve your ideal weight. 
Read more

Not all Frosted Window Films are the same!

Image
We live in an older home with a lot of issues and one of them concerns our back door to our patio from our sunroom. The door has double paned glass on it, but unfortunately the seal has broken so you can see moisture collect inside of it. We decided the easiest way to "remedy" the problem was to cover the window with some "frosted" film so we did not have to see the moisture condensing between the panes. But the question was, what film? There are a bunch of them available so we had to select something to try on the door. The first place we tried was our nearby Lowe's store which had a bunch of Gila brand film. We selected what seemed like the typical adhesive based door sized  film that cost about $25 after tax. We thought it could not be that hard to put up and look nice on our door. So one day my wife ran out and purchased it at Lowe's and we commenced to install it on our door window. We made our own soapy water solution and followed the directions...
Read more