Much of the recent boost to Austin’s housing market recovery has been the tax credit offered to new homebuyers. Now that credit is coming to an end, but the assistance would still be helpful to many people now and in the immediate future. There are many, including the National Association of Realtors, that are pushing to get this credit extended.

Yesterday, Ron Phillips, Vice President of the NAR, testified at a hearing before the senate committee on the tax credit and other issues. You can read the transcript here.

He quotes Arun Raha, chief economist for the state of Washington, who was quoted in the Seattle Times saying: “every 1,000 home sales generate $112.4 million of economic activity with $71.9 million of it directly from home-sale preparation and the actual real-estate transaction. In addition, more than 700 new jobs are created. This is not a balance-sheet bailout, it’s real help for our neighbors and communities.” Phillips continues to point out the ‘trickle-up’ effect, that is, new home buyers allowing current homeowners the chance to purchase another home. As Raha says, “[these] purchases spark a surge of home buying that ripples across the economy and into the future. Most of their purchases are homes that someone else has been waiting to sell so that they, in turn, can purchase another house.”

NAR President Charles McMillan released a podcast on the issue, also available as of yesterday – You that podcast is available here. As he has said, “housing has always led this nation out of economic downturns, and can do so again.”

If you want to help, there is a video and message available along with an easy form to fill out to alert your representatives of your support. Also, it is not too late to take advantage of or tell a friend about the current tax credit and low interest rates for homebuyers.

After our blog on the subject, the Austin-American Statesman published an AP article about the current problems in home appraisals, yesterday. Here are a couple excerpts.

Home sales stabilizing, but prices still falling

By Alan Zibel
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wednesday, June 24, 2009

WASHINGTON — Nationwide home sales may have finally hit bottom, new data show, but a host of thorny problems are hindering a recovery.

Sales of previously occupied homes rose by 2.4 percent from April to May — the third monthly increase this year — but the results missed analysts’ expectations.

Home sellers are still competing against a growing number of bargain-priced foreclosures, buyers are paying higher mortgage rates, and new rules for property appraisers are delaying or scuttling many deals.

“We have just been flooded with e-mails, telephone calls on the appraisal problems,” said Lawrence Yun, the Realtors’ chief economist.

…New rules designed to tackle conflicts of interests in the property appraisal process have caused many transactions to fall apart or be delayed.

Responding to widespread complaints about inflated appraisals during the real estate boom, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo reached a pact last year with mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on a new code of conduct for the industry.

Since the rules took effect May 1, real estate agents and mortgage brokers say a number of appraisals are coming in surprisingly low.

The National Association of Realtors is pressing regulators to put an 18-month hold on the code, arguing in a letter Monday to regulators that the code is “hampering the housing market’s recovery.”

Although the new rules are not ideal, appraisers are not to blame for a market in which prices are falling rapidly, said Bill Garber, director of governmental relations at the Appraisal Institute.

He defended the industry, saying, “The appraisers only report what’s going on in the market.”