This just in: Congress is thinking about extending the first time home buyer tax credit. The program has proved rather successful in terms of encouraging home purchases, and now Congress is interested in possibly extending the program for another six months in order to give more people the chance to buy, and to further prop up the housing market.
Right now, the expiration date for the $8,000 first time home buyer tax credit is November 30, 2009. For most people, it’s reached a point where if you haven’t already submitted your mortgage application, you won’t make the deadline. However, if the …read more

The Treasury Department has decided to move a significant amount of funds from the Federal Reserve to other locations throughout the duration of the financial crisis. This move allows the Federal Reserve to freely loan funds to the market without having to impact the federal funds rate, which has important significance to banks and other lenders.
 
Right now, Treasury holds $200 billion in a Supplementary Financing Account with the Fed, but it plans to cut that amount to $15 billion over time. Analysts think that this move comes as part of the Treasury’s attempt to avoid hitting the federal debt ceiling, …read more

We all have our opinions as to why the global economy has tumbled so dramatically in recent times but it seems that nobody actually knows anything for sure. For this reason, Congress has decided to appoint a commission to investigate the cause of the economic crisis, led by former California treasurer Phil Angelides.
 
The decision to create an investigate panel was made by Congressional Democrats, who were also responsible for appointing Brooksley Born, former Clinton staff member; Bob Graham, former Florida senator; Heather Murren, former Merrill Lynch managing director; Las Vegas businessman Byron Georgiou; and Symantec chairman John W. Thompson.
 
The commission …read more

Ever since Congress finally moved to provide financial assistance to homeowners struggling to pay their monthly mortgages, I’ve heard nothing but whining, mostly from folks who aren’t having any troubles making their own housing payments.

Pres. Bush signed the housing stimulus billinto law yesterday. Let’s hope it provides some hope the millions of U.S. homeowners facing foreclosure.

According to RealtyTrac, a national provider of foreclosed properties, one in every 171 households received a foreclosure notice in the second quarter of this year. That’s an increase of 121 percent compared to the same quarter one year earlier.

There’s an interesting debate going on now between members of Congress and the Federal Housing Administration. Congress has proposed legislation requiring the FHA to back up to $300 billion worth of risky mortgage loans. The commissioner of the FHA, Brian Montgomery, opposes this legislation, saying that taking on so many bad loans would hurt his agency.

It’s a pretty stunning move: Officials with the National Association of Home Builders on Feb. 12 decided that the group’s political action committee will no longer make contributions to candidates for U.S. Congress.