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Home Buyer Tax Credit

I had originally thought this article would be about my trip to Washington, DC in early May so could let the members know what all is going on with our efforts to get a National Agency Disclosure form passed, but there are other things going on as well. Let's start with those.

Home Buyer Tax Credit
Legislation introduced by Senator Harry Reid that would extend the closing deadline for the Home Buyer Tax Credit from June 30 to September 30 passed in the Senate. Based on information provided by the National Association of Realtors, home buyers have been unable to secure a closing date by June 30 either due to delays as a result of the amount of applications or due the delays that come with short sales and foreclosures. It is hoped that this legislation, if passed, will allow those home buyers to take advantage of the credit in spite of the delays. Unfortunately, the bill which was amended to include this legislation appears to be facing an uphill battle. According to our lobbying firm, "the bill is being stalled by Sen. Ben Nelson and Sen. Scott Brown, who are concerned about the cost which was already reduced from $140 billion to $118 billion yesterday. Democrats are still working on finding the two Republican votes they need to proceed."

National Agency Disclosure
As I mentioned earlier, I traveled to Washington, DC to do some lobbying on NAEBA's behalf. I met with numerous Congressional offices and Past President John Sullivan joined me on a visit to his Congresswoman's office. We are hearing a lot of positive things about National Agency Disclosure; mainly that it sounds like a good idea and that it makes sense. Unfortunately, to get anything done, we need to be able to show damage to consumers, which is easier said than done. We have a few stories, but not enough. Because of this and on the advice of our lobbying firm, we are changing strategy somewhat. We are now asking for a repeat of the FTC study that was completed in 1983.

The FTC through this study came to the conclusion that "The selection of a "buyer" broker is a very large purchasing decision. Despite the magnitude of this decision, many consumers are unaware of basic aspects of the decision, including that the broker fee is negotiable, and that the brokers' services may not be as buyers believe them to be. The state of consumer information relating to these important terms of the transaction provides some evidence of an important deficiency in the performance of the information function of the real estate brokerage industry." It is our belief that an update of this study will show that this has remained unchanged in spite of or in some cases because of changes in state laws. Then, we will have the evidence needed to support a National Agency Disclosure.

Getting a new study completed isn't a slam dunk, but we do have several promising avenues we are pursuing. The first is to get it included in the Financial Services bill which has passed both the House and the Senate and is now in Conference Committee. We have sent the committee a letter asking that language for the study be added to the final version of the bill. This is a long shot, but we are asking. A more likely path will be to get language added to an appropriations bill. We have several Congressional offices who we believe would be willing to take the lead on that. This will take longer, however, as no bills are currently planned, especially with elections coming up. Another option may be to draft a letter requesting an update of the study that is signed by numerous members of Congress and yet another option may be to get another agency other than FTC to repeat the study.

"A cloture vote failed last night 56 to40 with Sen. Ben Nelson and Sen. Lieberman voted against it, and Sen. Byrd was absent. Democrats are meeting today to come up with a new strategy, but at this point they are unsure if the debate will even continue next week. However, Sen. Baucus was quoted as saying, "The bottom line is that we're going to keep trying because that's what the American people want us to do."

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