Welcome to the "Z" Team! Douglas and Bud Zeller

Great analysis, provided by our  good  friend and economic advisor for the  Placerville, California area;  Steve Cockerell, President of Western Foothill Mortgage, Inc.

As the Federal $8,000 tax credit ends, it would seem that here, nothing is lost as the first time buyer can trade that credit for a $10,000 State tax credit.  However, they are far from similar. 

The key differences between the two credits are…

1. The Federal credit comes in one chunk $8,000 if you qualify – and relatively soon after which helps the home buyer recoup perhaps up to 100% of his move-in on the deal.
2. The Federal tax credit was not conditioned on a tax liability, thus even if you did not owe once cent in taxes, you could still receive the $8k – SWEEEEET! 

The State credit is paid out in 3 increments of maximum $3,333 each over tax years 2010, 2011 & 2012.  This is a lot less up front.  Secondly, and more important is this…you can only get the credit against actual state income taxes owed in those tax years.  

Here is a typical example on a first time buyer purchasing an average home at $275,000. 

On a USDA 100% loan (or FHA 96.5%) the payments (PITI) are about $2,000.  If the borrower meets guideline ratios of 31/41 for this purchase (assuming about 10% of income goes to other debts like auto, credit cards, etc) Annual income to qualify is $77,400. 

The tax writeoff for owning this home is about $11,000 so this tax payer itemizing his deductions will take off about $15,000 for taxable calculations.  A family of 4 on this income will have a State tax liability of $1,640 so that is the maximum tax benefit he car reap from the State credit.  Multiply this by 3 years and his $10,000 is diminished to actual credit benefit of $4,920 or less than ½ of the limit. 

What happens to the other $5,080?  Absolutely nothing!  The State of California is off the hook.  This means that the $100 Million designated to the first time buyer program is likely diminished to about $50 Million – pretty clever of your lawmakers.  This extra money will not be designated to go out to more first time buyers unless they re-write the law.  And they cannot compute the leftovers until 2013!