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Where can you find stylish mid-century executive homes? North Central, sure. Camelback, Arcadia and Scottsdale, definitely. But had you thought of looking Litchfield Park, in the far West Valley?

Old Town Litchfield Park is my secret vice. I work a lot in the far West Valley, but, of course, a lot of my work is focused on bread-and-butter suburban tract homes.

But I love it when I get a few minutes to sneak into Litchfield Park. The homes are excellent, vast and elegant, low-slung statements of mid-century confidence.

The photos here are illustrative of the quality of the homes, but you can see more at our Classic Litchfield Park homes web site.

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Prices for Phoenix-area real estate are very low, but are they low enough to justify a run on the market?

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link).

 
Prices for Phoenix-area real estate are very low, but are they low enough to justify a run on the market?

Looking for some rock-solid investment advice? Buy low. Sell high.

That seems obvious enough — except it often turns out to be the opposite of what people do. There are legions of people in the Phoenix market who bought high and are having to sell low.

The trouble is, it’s hard to know which is which until after the fact. Many people bought homes during the boom at what seemed to be high prices, only to sell them a year later for even higher prices.

That was a very fun game to play — until the music stopped and left you without a chair. Many putative experts — I was one of them — thought the boom would go on even longer than it did.

But what about now? Prices are very low, but are they low enough to justify a run on the market?

The technical answer is yes. Phoenix-area home prices are nicely aligned with incomes, and premium rental homes are comfortably cash-flow-positive from the first tenant.

The market’s response is no. So far, there hasn’t been a fire-sale mentality in the marketplace to go along with the fire-sale prices. I’m working with several investors who are picking up multiple properties, often for cash, but there is nothing like the activity we saw in 2004 or 2005.

But all that could change very soon. The Fed continues to hold interest rates very low, and there is talk of forcing the rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage down to 4%. And the so-far-unadopted stimulus plan includes a $8,000 tax credit for first-time home-buyers.

Lenders will find a way to turn that tax-credit into a short-term loan. And $8,000 is a 10% down-payment on an $80,000 home. Putting 3.5% down on an FHA loan, $8,000 is enough to get an $225,000 property.

If owner-occupant buyers soak up all the excess resale inventory, that should cause prices to stabilize or even start to rise. If, instead, new-home builders use the tax credit to build even more homes in our already-overbuilt market, the bottom will be but a distant dream.

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Affordable historic homes can be hard to find - except in Villa Verde, a neighborhood built by Frank B. Wallace

Are you looking for a truly historic home in Phoenix for less than $100,000?

This is a doable proposition, but you’ll have to make some compromises. The homes available to you are going to be fairly small, for one thing. And they won’t be in the toniest of neighborhoods. And you should plan to expend some elbow grease, both in restoring the home’s historic authenticity and in undoing past botched remodeling efforts.

This is precisely the same process folks went through in the Willo and Story Historic Districts. They just endured their hardships a decade or two earlier.

It’s a sweet thing if you can buy an historic home that has already been restored, planted amidst other restored homes. But if you don’t have that kind of money, you’ll need to take on the pioneer’s burden in another neighborhood.

The downsides of this process are abundantly clear, but the upside can be very attractive: You can be the urban homesteader who brings a neglected historic neighborhood back to popularity — and to acclaim and prosperity, as well.

Perhaps the best place to explore this kind of opportunity is in The Villa Verde Historic District. This little pocket neighborhood, just west of the Arizona State Fair Grounds, was built entirely by Frank B. Wallace, one of the seminal home builders in early Phoenix history. BloodhoundRealty.com represented Wallace’s family home a few years ago.

The most affordable home for sale in Villa Verde right now is 1902 West Granada Road, which is offered at $59,900, but there are several others available for less than $100,000.

And the homes are completely unique, no two alike. The photo you see above is a detailed image of the Clinker Brick used in the construction of 1920 West Granada Road.

Will Villa Verde be as in-demand as the Willo or Story ten years from now? There’s no way to predict that. But if you’re looking for a genuine historic home in Downtown Phoenix, a home with an impeccable historic pedigree, Villa Verde has a lot to offer for the money. If you’d like to explore your opportunities, you can click this link to see detailed photos of some Villa Verde homes. Or, better yet, give us a call at 602-740-7531 and we’ll take a tour of the available homes in person.

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In a city known for its bland architecture, Phoenix can claim a very proud distinction in the unique mid-century modern homes of Ralph Haver

Look at this:

That’s just sweet. It’s a Ralph Haver home in the Windemere neighborhood, off of Indian School Road just east of 44th Street. There are only three dozen Haver homes in the community, and there are fewer that 200 Havers in all of Phoenix.

But for all the cookie-cutter tract homes littering the desert, the unique Ralph Haver style redeems them all.

They’re not the most practical homes, and they tend to seem kind of small to modern sensibilities. But they have a home-of-the-future panache you won’t find in more-normal residential structures.

This particular home is interesting because it’s all-but-unchanged on the inside. These are original sheet-metal cabinets, for example:

As I write this, there are a total of five Haver homes for sale in the Valley — and only one in Windemere. (The home shown here is gone, alas.) If you would like to see them first-hand — or other mid-century modern marvels of design — give us a call at 602-740-7531. We’ll take you to a Phoenix that might have been…

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Are you planning on making expensive changes to your home? Make sure they’ll make sense to future buyers

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link).

 
Are you planning on making expensive changes to your home? Make sure they’ll make sense to future buyers

I was in a house once where the sellers had spent $20,000 remodeling the kitchen. Black Corian countertops with lime green trim. A black sink with gold-plated fixtures. Black and green marble flooring. And all of it was set off by dramatic spot-lighting, blinding where it hit, gloomy everywhere else.

That kitchen was gauche by Las Vegas casino standards, but the owners could not understand why their house wasn’t selling.

If you’re going to spend money improving your home, be sure your work results in real improvements.

Updating kitchens and bathrooms can be a good idea, but make sure your design decisions fall somewhere in the middle of the bell curve. A bathroom pleasing to a king — or to a gangster — might suit your tastes, but it could make your home hard to sell.

Adding a second story to a ranch home is usually a pretty terrible idea. Like them or not, ranch homes are what they are, and if you violate the low, sleek lines of your home, you may end up with something that looks like the neighborhood goiter.

If you decide to convert that patio into living space, do it in a way that makes architectural sense. A huge family room leading, through the removed double-doorway to yet another huge family room won’t make sense to future buyers. And whether you call it an Arizona room, a Florida room or a Lanai, if it’s not ducted to the main HVAC system and insulated to the same rating as the rest of the home, appraisers will not count it as livable space.

Likewise, a converted garage can be a great way to get a overgrown teenager to move out, but it’s not really a bedroom. The garage is probably worth more as a garage, on resale.

Here’s a useful question: “Would this make sense to me if I were buying this house?” If the answer to that question is not an obvious yes, don’t make the change. No matter what you might want, if your house doesn’t make sense to buyers, it won’t sell.

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The Willo Historic District Home Tour is this Sunday, February 8th, but you can tour one-of-a-kind homes whenever you want

The 21st Willo Home Tour & Street Fair will take place on Sunday, February 8, 2009. This is your chance to tour a dozen of the most unique homes to be found anywhere in the Valley of the Sun. Phoenix is well into its extended Spring season, and a walking tour of fascinating homes is a great way to spend your Sunday.

But I get to see interesting homes every day, and, because I do, so do you. Here’s an example from The Willo Historic District:

This is 525 West Granada Road, which is currently offered for sale by Tom Bryant of Realty Executives.

The original 1930 structure is a Tudor Revival. It’s built on a foundation, which is why there are steps leading up to the front door. The historic authenticity of the home has been retained and cherished, as you can see in this stylish and yet almost-rustic kitchen:

But the current owners have upgraded the home in ways that will make sense to modern sensibilities. The original bathroom fixtures have been retained and restored:

But a vast new Master Suite has been added at the back of the home, with era-appropriate fixtures:

This is a sweet home — and you should click this link to see for yourself. Very spacious inside, and there’s a livable guest house and a back yard made for entertaining. The Phoenix Historic Districts are suburban retreats right in the heart of everything, but this home is Historic Phoenix at its most urbane: You’re a couple of blocks north of McDowell Road and a short hop to the new Light Rail line on Central Avenue. You can walk to the Heard Museum, to the Art Museum or to the Burton Barr Public Library.

Walkable Phoenix? That must be a typo, right? It’s not. Give us a ring at 602-740-7531 and we’ll show you the Phoenix that was here before everyone else got here. It’ll be just like the home tour, only just for you — and we’ll be touring homes you can make your own.

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Remodeling your home — if you do it right — can add to your enjoyment now and to your resale value later

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link).

 
Remodeling your home — if you do it right — can add to your enjoyment now and to your resale value later

Removing interior walls and low ceilings can make your house feel more open — and more modern. Combined with other improvements — kitchen and bathroom remodeling and energy-efficient windows — opening up your floorplan can add substantially to your enjoyment of your home now, and to its resale value later.

Simply opening the kitchen up to the living and family rooms can make a huge difference. Modern homes are built around the “greatroom” concept, where the kitchen leads to an island which in turn leads to the entertainment space. Whether people are cooking, hanging out or watching television, family and guests are all together, rather than being isolated into separate spaces by function.

A common upgrade people will make to older homes is converting the carport into a garage. This is not a difficult change to make, but there are safety considerations: The door leading from the garage to the house should be fire-rated and self-closing to keep exhaust fumes out of the home.

People also try to convert carports to livable space, often to the home’s detriment. When you step down off the slab, you are stepping out of the house. If you want to convert a carport — or an existing garage or a patio — to livable space, you should start by pouring new slab to the same level as the rest of the home. This is not just a cosmetic issue. You need a better footing for the extra weight the slab will have to bear.

But that’s just the beginning. The walls will need to be built to the same insulation factor as the other exterior walls of the home. And the roof will need reinforcement — and insulation.

It’s not uncommon to see homes that have doubled in square footage by means of converting outdoor spaces to indoor spaces, sometimes with one vast converted patio leading to another. But if these additions are not built to the same standards as the rest of the home — and if they are not ducted to the central heating and air conditioning systems — appraisers will not evaluate them as livable space.

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Four ways to experience the F.Q. Story Home Tour this weekend

Here are four great ways you can take in the holiday goodness of the F.Q. Story Historic District Home Tour this weekend:

  1. Get thee hence. The tour is on Lynwood Street this year and runs Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.
  2. Tour our past F.Q. Story listings. We’ve listed a number of stunning historic homes in Story in the past. Here are a few of them:
  3. Tour the F.Q. Story Historic District house-by-house. We love these homes. We have photos of hundreds of F.Q. Story homes. You can wander through the neighborhood from home, taking a peek at everything.
  4. Join us at Open House. We don’t have a home listed in Story right now — our listings are selling in 43 days, on average, in 2008. But we have an amazing home for sale just a few blocks east, at 56 West Willetta Street. The home is a 1926 Craftsman, roomy and comfortable, with a heated pool and spa. Even better, you’re just a short walk from the new light rail line, which opens at the end of the month. If you’re coming down to Story for the tour, be sure to drop in and see us. We’ll be there from 11 am to 5 pm.

View Larger Map
Join us at 56 West Willetta Street, Phoenix, AZ 85003
Sunday, December 7th, 2008, 11 am to 5 pm

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Sunnyslope Home Tour This Weekend: Communing With The Soul of Sunnyslope

 

If this were any city other than Phoenix, Sunnyslope would already be our Beverly Hills. Instead, this sleeping beauty — with its gorgeous mountain terrain, its dazzling views of downtown, its proximity to freeways, resorts, and the Central Corridor — has been dogged for decades by a lousy reputation that evolved from its days as the original Tent City, back when it was a lowly convalescent camp where the sick and dying came to soak up the sun.

Founded a century ago by an architect who fell for its unique skyline and klieg-lit, hilly terrain, Sunnyslope has been kept in a continuous holding pattern by that crummy rep. It’s maintained its place as a community on the brink of significance, a place of great paradox. Its handsome, hilly landscape — which stretches from 16th Street to 19th Avenue, between Northern and Cactus Roads — has long been populated by drug dealers and hookers, undesirables whose derelict homes rest in the shadow of million-dollar hillside housing. It’s a community that’s often mistaken for a town; one that’s been home to both one of the city’s best-regarded high schools and its highest concentration of crime.

And though developers have been busy building stadiums and relocating college campuses and renovating fallen neighborhoods all over town, the denizens of Sunnyslope have been quietly rebuilding their community, one street at a time. It’s an eccentric, grass-roots effort unlike any other in the Valley, one born of necessity by this overlooked, redheaded stepchild of a borough, and funded by a corporate benefactor — a hospital, no less — that owes its very existence to Sunnyslope.

So wrote Robert Pela last year in Sunnyslopetopia, his New Times article celebrating Sunnyslope.

In the article, he interviews “the mayor of Sunnyslope” Mike Nielsen, interior designer and gallery owner, whose home you can tour this week during the Third Annual Sunnyslope Home Tour.

Here you’ll see a short history of distinguished building in Phoenix: two homes from the 1920’s, including the renovated Bohn Home — an adobe home built as a labor of love during 1928; a Mid-Century Modern ranch; and two modern homes. In addition to Nielsen’s home, the distinctive Young residence will be on display.

Mr. Young, an architect with the Woolsey Studio designed the home for his personal use. He chose Sunnyslope as the site of his home because of its magnificent views right in the city and its tolerance for creative design. No McMansions here!

When? Saturday and Sunday, November 15 & 16
Time? 9 AM to 3:30 PM. Each tour lasts approximately 90 minutes.
Where? Guided tour buses leave every half hour from Sunnyslope Historical Society, 737 E Hatcher Rd
Cost? $35 per person, benefitting the non-profit Sunnyslope Historical Society Museum. Tickets must be purchased in advance by cash or check.

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Restoring a bargain-priced lender-owned home is easy - if you have cash - but a HUD 203k rehab loan makes it easy even if you don’t

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link). How applicable is this idea to historic or architecturally-distinctive homes? Much too much, alas. As with the rest of the real estate market, many remarkable homes have fallen into lenders’ hands. As an example, 718 West Moreland Street, which I wrote about in April, has been repossessed by the bank. What this means is that owner-occupants can do a great deal of restoration on the way into their new trophy homes…

Last week we talked about troubled homes and how they can be restored to livability. That’s fine if you’re an investor with pockets full of cash. But what if you’re an ordinary home-buyer? How can you pick up a bargain-priced home and then refurbish it to its former homey comfort?

If you’re buying with an FHA loan, chances are the home is going to have to be at least partially restored before you can close on it. FHA loans require a more-rigorous appraisal, and any defects rendering the home uninhabitable will have to be corrected before you can proceed.

So if the range is missing from the kitchen, it will have to be replaced. If the water heater is broken, it will have to be repaired. If the pool is green, it will either have to be restored to swimmable condition or drained.

Who is responsible for these repairs? Normally, habitability issues would fall to the seller. But most foreclosure properties are sold “as-is” — take it or leave it. If you have cash, you can pay for the repairs prior to close of escrow and then move in as planned.

But what if you don’t have that kind of money?

One solution is to write your repair issues into your purchase contract. If the seller agrees to restore the pool and replace the range, you’ve dealt with the habitability problem in advance.

Another option is to take advantage of HUD’s 203k rehabilitation program. With a 203k loan the loan underwriter can attach what amounts to a construction loan onto the primary purchase loan. So you could buy a lender-owned home for $100,000 and finance an additional $10,000 to refurbish the kitchen after close of escrow. The appraiser will assess the value the home will have after the improvements have been made.

As you might expect, the fine print is extensive, but for an FHA 203k loan in Phoenix your purchase price plus rehab costs can run as high as $362,000. At 3.5% down, that’s an easy way into a nicely upgraded home.

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This just might be the optimal time to buy a home in Phoenix

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link).

 
This just might be the optimal time to buy a home in Phoenix

Who should be buying residential real estate in Phoenix right now?

If you have been planning to buy a home sometime soon, and if you know for certain that you won’t need to sell it for at least five years, this just might be your magic moment.

Interest rates are still deliciously low, but both current events and long term trends suggest they’re headed higher. You’ll probably have to sell your current home for less than you wanted to, but you’ll be buying your next home at a bargain-basement price.

Sadly, you may not have enough equity in your home to move up. But if you do, there are some amazing homes out there selling for unheard-of prices. Houses that sold for $375,000 in 2005 are going for $175,000 three years later.

If you do have substantial equity in your home, even at today’s prices, moving up now may make a lot of sense. The rules for the capital gains exclusion on primary homes change on January 1st. If you’ve been in your home for more than the last 24 months but fewer than the last 60 months, moving before the end of the year could save you a significant amount of money on your taxes.

It makes sense to me for college students and their parents to snap up condominiums and starter-homes while prices are so low. After the start of the year, if the student holds title, it will take five years to realize the full benefit of the capital gains exclusion — approximately the length of a college career.

First-time home-buyers are taking advantage of this market, as well, with low-down-payment or even nothing-down government-sponsored loans.

Who else should be buying? Investors, of course, but the smart ones have already figured that out. For now, it’s very easy to acquire a premium home in a commuter-friendly suburb that will be cash-flow positive from the first tenant. Investor loans can be hard to obtain, but prices are so low that many investors are simply paying cash.

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Other types of credit may be feeling the crunch, but home mortgages are still readily available

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link).

 
Other types of credit may be feeling the crunch, but home mortgages are still readily available

Bad news about the economy is coming in from all directions, so you may be in the mood for some good news: There is plenty of money available for home loans.

By taking over FannieMae and FreddieMac, the federal government has essentially nationalized the secondary mortgage market. The lenders themselves are still private entities, but the government’s loan guarantees are viewed as being so strong that, by now, virtually all residential real estate loans are coming through Fannie, Freddie, the FHA or the VA.

The other way of saying the same thing: There is virtually no secondary mortgage market left for non-conforming or sub-prime loans.

So while you may have trouble getting new car financing or a loan for your business, you should have no problem getting a home loan — if you qualify and if the amount you’re borrowing falls within the limits set by the four government agencies guaranteeing home loans.

And there’s the rub: For most of the Phoenix area, qualifying for a conforming loan should be no problem. But higher-priced homes are sold with non-conforming “jumbo” loans, which are difficult to obtain right now and come at much higher interest rates.

Using an FHA loan, it is still possible to buy a home with “nothing down.” FHA borrowers are obliged to pay a 3.5% down payment, but this can be offset by the $7,500 tax credit incorporated in the mortgage relief bill passed in July. FHA borrowers can ask the seller for up to 6% in closing costs, so they can take possession of the home for no money out of pocket.

But there’s a catch: To obtain an FHA loan, the home will have to pass a rigorous FHA appraisal, which will eliminate many foreclosed homes unless the seller is willing to correct the most serious defects.

All that notwithstanding, while the financial sky might be roiling with dark clouds, real estate is still a silver lining. Because of the government’s loan guarantees, lenders are willing to take risks on homes loans much more readily than on other types of credit.

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Fannie and Freddie fall to foreclosure, but, still, lenders lend

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link).

 
Fannie and Freddie fall to foreclosure, but, still, lenders lend

I write this column at the beginning of the week, and it appears at the end of the week. My topics are usually timeless, but, if I turn my attention to current events, there’s always the chance that I’ll end up with my foot in my mouth.

Even so, the news that matters most in residential real estate this week is the takeover by the federal government of the Federal National Mortgage Association (FannieMae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FreddieMac). These two quasi-private corporations define the lion’s share of the secondary mortgage market in the United States.

What does that mean? If you got a conforming loan for your home, it will have been sold into the secondary mortgage market in short order. FannieMae or FreddieMac would have guaranteed the loan to investors, this so your lender could have had a renewed supply of capital from which to make new loans. Federal Housing Authority and Veterans’ Administration loans would have been guaranteed by those entities, and sub-prime (non-conforming) loans would have been marketed directly to private investors. The secondary mortgage market exists to keep loan originators liquid in a market where very few people keep their savings in banks.

Given the federal takeover, has the sky fallen on the secondary mortgage market? No, although things may be a little sluggish as the newly-installed management teams learn the ropes. But as San Diego real estate broker Jeff Brown says, “Lenders lend.” There are still plenty of dollars chasing mortgages, so there will be mortgages chasing dollars. It’s plausible that interest rates could even go down, now that the secondary mortgage market has a rich Uncle Sam to back its loans.

What is not so plausible is the notion that investors will suddenly abandon housing altogether. Things will shake out. The ideal situation would be for a new free-market clearinghouse for the secondary mortgage market to arise. A business like that could cherry-pick the strongest loans, those least likely to go into foreclosure, leaving the more marginal loans to the Feds — the FederalExpress principle.

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With its new iPhone application, Trulia.com is taking on-line real estate search to the streets

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link). There is a fuller review of this new technology here.

 
With its new iPhone application, Trulia.com is taking on-line real estate search to the streets

So who is winning the Realty.bot race, Trulia.com or Zillow.com? Your guess is as good as anyone’s, but this week marks a decisive change in the game: Trulia just released an iPhone application.

Trulia Mobile will offer a limited set of location-based searches from Apple’s iPhone, from an array of other smartphones and from Dash Navigation GPS devices. The user-experience will differ by device, but the design premise is based on location-sensitivity: Your iPhone always knows where you are, so it can interact with Trulia’s file servers to show you a list of nearby listings or open houses. You can get a detailed summary for each home on your list, and you can then email the listing to a friend, contact the listing agent directly or map the home so that you can hop over for a quick peek.

It’s hard to argue with the design premise: If people are going to go out house-hunting on their own, whether they are really looking for a house or simply touring open houses for decorating ideas, why not use the location-sensing power of modern electronics to hook them into Trulia’s listings database?

The ability to contact the listing agent plausibly increases the likelihood of dual agency transactions, but the fact of life is that many, many people are at least starting their home search without the advice of a buyer’s agent.

But here’s the bonus that popped out at me when I heard about Trulia’s iPhone application: Listing agents who want to compete for mobile-empowered buyers need to get their listings into Trulia and they need to keep their open house schedules up to date. I like anything that makes listers more diligent in their duties to their clients.

The iPhone application is slick and useful as written, this because “data is the new Intel-inside” and Trulia has a rich store of data to draw upon. The usual caveats about opt-in versus MLS listings apply, along with concerns about decay among voluntarily-maintained listings. But, all that notwithstanding: Trulia’s mobile-computing initiative is cool.

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There’s more to the mortgage relief bill than just mortgage relief

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link).

 
There’s more to the mortgage relief bill than just mortgage relief

Having trouble making your mortgage payments? You might be able to make a change in your loan, thanks to the mortgage relief bill President Bush recently signed into law. Under the bill, you can convert your high-interest adjustable-rate loan to a lower-interest fixed-rate note if you meet what might, in a declining market, seem to be Catch-22-like guidelines: Your payment must be more than 31% of your income, and your new loan cannot exceed 90% of your home’s value. Help is available — provided you don’t need it.

Starting October 1st, seller-paid down-payment assistance grants will be outlawed for FHA loans. This is bad news for lower-priced neighborhoods in Metropolitan Phoenix, where as many as nine out of ten homes are being sold with down-payment assistance. Expect to see a flurry of this activity in the next two months.

But the left hand gives where the right hand takes away: Buyers who have not owned a home for three years can take a $7,500 “refundable” tax-credit if they buy between April 9, 2008 and July 1, 2009. The credit is to be repaid over the next 15 years.

Perhaps the biggest change introduced by the bill is a revision of the capital gains exclusion rules. Since 1997, sellers have been able to deduct up to $250,000 of the capital gain on the primary residence from their tax burden — up to $500,000 for married couples — if they lived in the home for at least 24 months out of the preceding 60. Under the new law, the deduction will be pro-rated over those 60 months. If you live in the home for the full five years, you will take the full deduction. If you live there for three years out of the five, you’ll deduct only 60%.

In the long run, this will slow down the level of residence-churning seen among monied home-owners. In the short run, expect a lot of pricey homes to sell between now and January 1st, when the old exclusion goes away.

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