$8,000 First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit to be Extended?

Tax Credit extension likely?

Diana Olick, CNBC’s Real Estate Reporter, thinks the administration is going to extend the $8000 Home Buyer’s Credit. “I was on the fence for a while as to whether Congress would extend the $8000 first time home buyer tax credit and whether the Administration would stand behind that, but I'm getting some clues that have pushed me over the side,” Olick says. “I think it may happen.” She names a couple of insiders who deflected her questions about an extension, but cites Secretary Geithner as saying, “We're not going to make the mistake many countries made in the past of putting the brakes on too early and creating risk that we have a, you know, weaker recovery with even higher levels of unemployment going forward.” And Geithner again: “…[we are] looking at a set of programs like unemployment insurance, other sets of things that have--that are set to expire. And there's a good case for extending them. And I think a lot of support fundamentally for doing it.” Olick also cites a report by the Joint Committee on Taxation on extending and even broadening the credit that Capital's Washington Research Group says, "strongly suggests that a mere extension of the program will be much less and refutes whispers in Washington that an extension alone could cost more than $15 billion.”