[quote=ariffe22]nobody should count their chickens before they hatch here, but it appears as the bill is written it applies to purchases after 12/31/08. In addition it appears that you need to put at least 5% down on the home to be eligible for the credit and the home must be a “principal residence”. There are recapture provisions if it does not meet the principal residence test within the first 36 months.
Then again, this has not passed the joint congressional committee and obtained the President’s signature. Congress says they will be done with this by President’s Day 2/16. We will see.
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The 5% down rule is in a similar bill proposed by Sen. Thune (R) that also proposed an increase to 15K for this credit that hasn’t yet come to a vote. Thune’s bill is VERY unlikely to be passed, because it covers multiple areas, many of which have already been voted down (such as the GOP tax proposal to drop the 10% and 15% tax brackets down to 5% and 10% respectively), as well as a “poison pill” which forbids future tax increases to pay for any of the current spending (VERY unlikely to make it through a democrat controlled legislature).

The bill that passed todays was simply an amendment to the Inouye bill which bumps the credit to 15K, while keeping the change to make it a true credit. It does NOT contain the minimum downpayment increase to 5% that the Thune bill does.