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All the first time home buyers now have $7500 dollars of funny money that they can only spend on buying a house.Depending on the elasticity of demand for housing in your area; a percentage of the money will go to the sellers and a percentage to buyers. In a high demand market like LA, Sf, NYC or Seattle the most of that money will go to sellers. So the the $350,000 dollar home becomes the $355,000 dollar home.
The only places were the magority will go to the buyers is where there is such a surplus of housing that sellers can not demand a higher price.
That said, I live in L.A. and $75,000 out here is not the same as $75,000 in Podunk, Nebraska. In most of the country you can buy a house for less than $100,000. Good luck finding a condo in L.A. for less than $300,000. But, I'm not shedding tears for people making over $75,000, even here in L.A. At least they have jobs!
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I'd love for you to provide links to prove this.
let's reverse this for a second... everyone was yelling at John about whining yesterday that he made too much money to get the breaks everyone with lower incomes is getting.
I truely believe the breaks should be indexed according to cost of living wherever you are.
think about it, you can tell John to move... or get mad at him because living in DC is his 'choice' (inferring he chose to live there so he should quit whining because he makes a lot more than people in rural areas... even if it IS more expensive?) . True, he chose to live in DC... but he's also in DC because his JOB is there.
would you say its fair for someone living in NYC to tell someone in Ohio or Michigan to move elsewhere because their jobs are disappearing? Didn't they choose to live in Michigan or Ohio?
you mention 'if you're lucky to still have a job'... yeah, we might live in cities... yeah, we might make more money than you do (even if it doesn't work out to BE more money)... but this is where we WORK.
and yes, the jobs are disappearing in the cities as well.
.
If your taxable income (before deductions) is $75 k, the tax owed is $15k. A $7500 tax credit gives you 6 months tax free. Now if you factor in the deductions a family usually can take it is conceivable that a first time home buyer earning $75k could indeed purchase that $350k town house and not owe any tax for the first year. I'd say that's a pretty good deal to me. Considering the median income in the state of California with all it's millionaires is in the $32k range, this bill will benefit many more people that it ever has. I applaud the effort this administration is making to help as many folks as humanly possible, but there has to be a cutoff somewhere.
Property tax should be based on the amount of square footage and acreage a person inhabits, with the exception of farmland.
The current tax fund distribution favors low-density areas, which makes them better, cleaner, safer places to live, unless you're a millionaire living in the city. This is also terribly unjust and needs to be addressed, with higher incentives for living in cities. It won't force anyone to do anything: if you want to live in the country or the suburbs in a humongous McMansion, gobbling up resources, so be it. But it shouldn't come at the expense of those living more sustainable lives with smaller carbon and tax footprints in the great, historic cities of this nation, or at the expense of new, high-density communities.
that's cool that you can grow vegetables, but my point stands: getting utilities and services to 1000 people who all live on 1000 acres is far more costly and inefficient than getting utilities and services to 1000 people who live on 10 acres. it's simple logic. they share a roof and foundation, common walls, etc, using less materials and less energy. if you have to drive to take your kids to school, get groceries, or socialize with the outside world, then the problem compounds. road maintenence for those places alone is a huge tax burden.
as i said, we export our urban tax money from cities to subsidize the many lower-density areas most people live in, and see less in return. it's a patently unfair system.
"Why leave our children in someone else's hands," Ervin Lupoe wrote in a letter posted late Tuesday on the KABC-TV Web site.
story here
These bastards need to do something NOW. RIGHT NOW. God damn them.
$95K in my neighborhood would be pretty damn well off, but I live in Hicksville, which is far, far, less stressful than DC, even less stressful than Charlotte--and it's been good for my mental health, BTW. And if you don't think the cost of living is high here, I have news for you--it is when wages are in the toilet or you don't have a job or any way of making money.
There are lots of people living in and around DC on far less than $95K a year. Where do you think all the clerks, secretaries, janitors and lower paid workers live?
Stop bitching John. I'm one of those "white male construction workers" and I'm not complaining.
And let's say with your big DC salary you buy a small condo for $350,000. Someone buys a small house in rural Idaho for $50,000. You both pay it off over 30 years. At the end you have $300,000 more equity that will buy you a mansion sitting on a lot of land in rural Idaho.
How about if both of you are putting 10% of your salary into retirement funds....
Same for paying off the student loan debt. $1600/mo student loan payment sure is easier on a $75,000 DC salary than a $30k podunk salary.
If living in DC is making you that poor, you're welcome to move out here. Beautiful country.
you obviously don't understand the phrase 'cost of living'...
try this: http://www.bankrate.com/brm/movecalc.asp?
pick a podunk town or small city in the 'move from'... pick Washington/Arlington for the 'move to'... and for salary, put in $50,000. Remember, this is assuming you make $50k in the podunk town/small city.
Then tell me again how its easier to pay off your student loan in DC making 75,000 than it is in a podunk town making 30k.
How about some logic... if someone working at Burger King in podunk Kentucky is making $5/hr... would you expect them to also get paid $5/hr working at Burger King in DC?
... and if you DO expect Burger King in DC to pay $5/hr... do you suggest the employee commute from podunk Kentucky to DC every day to work?
not exactly realistic is it? people that work in cities also have to live within commuting distance right? and how can they afford to do that without higher wages?
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/movecalc.asp?a=0&d1...
For example, according to the calculator above, if you make $75K in DC, you have the same buying power as someone in Oklahoma who makes $48K or someone in IA who makes $53K or someone in Montana who makes $57K.
All of those numbers are dated and some are even aggregated -- so you're including areas that you wouldn't live in. For example, the Boston numbers include some pretty dicey neighborhoods, where you wouldn't live. They pull the numbers down -- versus some areas in the Midwest where they don't have such differences between neighborhoods.
Suck it up, or move somewhere else - that $7500 credit certainly wouldn't go very far towards a $350k condo, anyways, at least not enough to make any realistic difference. A reasonable single person of any nature can live just fine in any of the areas you mentioned. It may not be living rich, but that's well above the median income in NYC even for a single person.
you're an idiot.
I don't have to live there to know that. Living in the state and paying attention (and knowing people who do live there) is sufficient.
Feel free to do additional research but those making over 75K a year are rather an elite group in our society. Especially those that are single. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_i...
Adding "rich" to the equation only confuses the matter. We have half of our families living on less than 44K a year and it seems like you are belly-aching for all those yuppies that make over 75K. Try raising a family on half that.
Once a Repub always a Repug.
Go to your room and don't come out until you can learn to be thankful for what you have - as it is way more than most people can ever have.
And don't tell me you are more deserving, because you're not.
http://tv1.com/playlists/104
Seriously, nobody is saying that you are rich - that was just John's hyperbole.
But you certainly are not poor. How often do you have do decide between going hungry or getting the meds you need? How often do you delay seeking medical attention because it costs too much?
Go ahead and bitch. To most of us thinking people, you will look like a self-obsessed, selfish lout. How many newly homeless people do you step over when you dismount from your high horse? Those damn poor people are always causing problems for 'you all', no?
In this bill, as a more than one person household, you'd be well within the guidelines. It starts phasing out at $150k/yr for couples/families.
And as far as threatening that you'd be better off being lazy....well that's a bunch of bullshit too along of the lines of "screw you guys, I'm going home." Somewhere in the back of your mind, you're counting up how much people are getting in food stamps, and then thinking what you could do with that money. And it's disgusting.
You're a single guy who makes over $75,000 a year and owns a $350,000 property by yourself. Do I think you're obscenely wealthy? Obviously not. Do I think you're very well off? Absolutely.
And while I'm sure that you'd really like an extra $7,500 (who wouldn't?), I'm equally certain that $7,500 isn't really a lot of money to someone in your position. It's not going to make or break you, and if you were honest, you'd admit that.
The reason this annoys me so much is that I feel that the conservative movement (and so much of the disaster it's spawned) has been built on exploiting the resentment and fear that someone, somewhere is getting a better deal on something than you are.
If the point is to help people BUY HOUSES, then I agree with John: a $75K income cap disqualifies most people in large cities on the coast. You'd never qualify for a loan large-enough to buy even a modest home in the Bay Area on only $75K per year - certainly not today.
However, I disagree with John on the political calculations behind these provisions; I'm doubtful Speaker Pelosi would sit back and tacitly disqualify most of her own constituents.
Then again, this is the same woman who took "Impeachment off the table."
-S
You actually think someone CHOOSES to have a child who requires intensive medical care in a country which has no national health?
You actually think *I* CHOSE to have my college scholarship with-held because my parents had too much money so I couldn't afford to even GO to college until I was 24 years old?
You think I CHOSE to have a congenital defect in my back come full blown when I was 39 which forced me out of my profession?
You people who made it and then sit there believing you CHOSE to be successful give me a royal pain.
You got LUCKY!!
There are plenty of people out here who worked just as hard as you did; are way smarter than you are who just didn't get the breaks that you did.
No one CHOOSES to be a failure. No one CHOOSES the CHANCE of catastrophic illness or accident or the genetic accident of an ugly face and unwieldy body.
Stop slapping yourself on the back so hard. You could lose it ALL in a heartbeat. Through absolutely NO ACTION of your own.
Would you be so welcome and your high-paying successful job if you fell through a plate glass window tomorrow and your face afterward resembled more a road map with some pieces missing?
Would you have CHOSEN to fall through that plate glass window?
The "you chose to be a failure" smuggery went out in the '80's, kiddo. It's a completely disproven and totally ignorant bastion of the self-satisfied and clueless.
I'm reminded of a saying that made me grateful for my life on more than one occasion - "I used to complain about not having any shoes, until I met the man with no feet" Now I can't say I've ever been the man with no feet, but I've certainly been the man with no boots before and all I can say is, the life choices I made along the way,, led me to where I was and to where I am now. No one (with very few exceptions) is a victim of their circumstance. Certainly some have a tougher road to hoe, (children born into poverty come to mind) but it all depends on how much you want your circumstance to change. We are all suffering now, even if we still have jobs to go to. Our families and friends will have to rely on us and on one another to help us through these tough times. But, nothing in life happens in a vacuum. Teach your children early on that choices have consequences and that they are certainly free to choose their own lives, but with that comes the responsibility of their future. I wish you both well, I sincerely do.
There are LOTS of people living in New York City and Washington DC and San Francisco that manage to scrape by on $10 an hour!
75,000 dollars isn't rich?!?!?!?
Who do you think you're kidding?!!?
What you're saying, in effect, is that people who make $10 an hour in these cities aren't actually living in those cities?
No.
What you're saying is that people who make 75,000 a year are struggling to keep their posh apartments; their new car every year; their vacations and their cleaning lady. They can barely afford those restaurant bills which they actually don't get to write off their taxes and it gets more and more difficult every day to afford those $400 jeans and $200 plain white cotton shirts.
Student loans? STUDENT LOANS?
You are aware that the education funding in this country has been gutted by billions of dollars, yes?
You are aware that about the ONLY way to GET a job that pays $75,000 a year is to be able to afford to go to college in the first place, yes?
Tech degrees cost 10's of thousands of dollars, and usually the job pays about $30,000 a year. So, there's a guy paying just about the same amount of money a month for a student loan who gets paid less than HALF what the 75K guy makes and you have the absolute self-delusion to claim that $75,000 a year isn't RICH?!?!?
Puh-leeeeeeez!!!!
stop whining and move if dc costs you too much. you could do what you do from anywhere in the world
whiny bitch
http://www.redfin.com/DC/WASHINGTON/4221-DIX-St...
First - you get what you pay for. You live in a $250,000 mansion in Paducha, Kentucky. You might have a huge house - but you still live in Paducha. There are no real museums, theatre, fine dining, art, or other culture. There is no real diversity.
Second - Jobs pay better in locations that cost more. An admin assistant in NY makes at least twice what an admin in Cedar Rapids.
Third - no one is forcing anyone to live anywhere. If you think you're paying too much for your place sell it and move. Do you need to be in DC to write a blog? I doubt it.
I agree, but this is not specifically focussing on those who have purchased but more to spark 1st time home owners to buy this year.