Home Buyer Tax Credit Gives Momentum

Linda Reynolds of Re/Max Greater Atlanta’s Cobb office is among local Realtors encouraged by the recent extension and expansion of the first-time home buyer tax credit, as she has already seen positive results from the original measure in the lives of her clients and in her own real estate career. As an example, she cites the recent home sale closing by clients Deniece Chevannes and Tyronda Little, who are now the owners of a new home in East Cobb County. Pictured, from left, are Chevannes, Reynolds, and Little. Reynolds said that the two new homeowners had been saving for awhile and that the home buyer tax credit gave them the momentum to start looking for the new home they wanted.

“They filed for accrediting under the program immediately and were extremely pleased when the whole process of being approved for the $8,000 tax credit took only four weeks. They are now paying less in mortgage payments than the rent cost them when they were living in an apartment,” said Reynolds.

According to Little, she and Chevannes first began conversing with Reynolds about purchasing a new home in March 2009. “Linda was very open and accessible to us, answering all our questions and she worked with our to find our new home and then guided us through the tax credit application process,” she noted.

“Knowing that I would receive the tax credit gave me a confident feeling that I would be able to start out as a new home owner with an actual savings account. Also, I knew that I would be able to pay for any personal upgrades to my home that I may not have been able to pay for had the $8,000 tax credit not been available.” Chevannes added, “I feel that the tax credit is a wonderful incentive to motivate people to purchase homes. I also think that it’s a great option to assist in helping recover the economy. It will definitely put a big ‘band-aid’ over what happened to the housing market with the foreclosure crisis. The tax credit has positively affected me in that I was able to have my floors repaired in my home prior to me moving in, and we are planning to redo a bathroom. I was also able to purchase a comfortable bed that I would not have been able to afford had the tax credit not been available. Finally, I was able to save the remaining amount of the tax credit to have available in my ‘just in case’ account.”

Linda Reynolds and her sales partner, Carol Moson, are the members of a Re/Max Greater Atlanta sales team working from the company’s Cobb office, located at 2050 Roswell Rd. in Marietta. She can be contact by calling 404-720-4174. The team specializes in the Cobb/Cherokee/Atlanta housing market.