Georgia Senator Offers Plan to Jump Start Housing

Speaking to an audience that included Realtors and business people in Chattanooga, Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson spelled out a new plan to jump start the housing industry in a speech in Walker County April 7th, according to a report by the Chattanooga Newspaper. The plan features a $15,000 tax credit to entice individuals to purchase a home in the next year. The plan, which has unanimously passed the Senate, now goes on to the House of Representatives. If passed there, it goes to the desk of President Obama. "Our economic crisis started with housing, and our economy will continue to suffer unless we do something now to immediately fix the housing problem," Isakson told the crowd. "I’m pleased my colleagues in the Senate understand the importance of creative targeted incentives that will encourage Americans to buy homes again.”

The amendment to the stimulus bill offered by Sen. Isakson provides a direct tax credit to any homebuyer who purchases any home. The amount of the tax credit would be $15,000, or 10 percent of the purchase price, whichever is less. During conference negotiations between the House and Senate on the final version of the bill, Isakson’s $15,000 tax credit for all purchasers of any home was removed. Instead, House and Senate negotiators made only small modifications to the first-time homebuyer tax credit that was enacted in 2008 as part of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, he said.

Sen. Isakson, a career-long realtor himself, said he has pushed hard for a non-repayable tax credit for homebuyers because he knows that it will work. He said his experience was garnered from more than three decades in the real estate business.