Utah - Buy our homes.
The Utah legislature passed a bill yesterday that creates a grant program for people buying a new home. The grant carries a weight of $6,000 and is available on a first come, first server basis to 1,600 people. They are trying to get people to buy up existing inventory of newly built homes or homes that are slated to be built. This is one way that Utah has decided to use their portion of the stimulus package.
If you couple this new grant with the $8,000 tax credit the fed is offering, Utahans could stand to get $14,000 dollars for building a new home this year. The $6,000 isn’t a tax credit like the $8,000, it’s an actual grant. So it can be used as part of a down payment.
I don’t know if this bill is going to work as law makers hope it will. They are opening it up to those who have already built and moved into a new home this year, as well as those who are already in the process of building a new home. Many of the 1,600 grants set aside to encourage people to buy up home inventory will be snatched up by those who already have, thus defeating the purpose. However, it’s an interesting idea nonetheless.
Last 3 posts by Mark
- I lost and won my first election - March 23rd, 2010
- Seriously?! - February 17th, 2010
- Current Government Flowchart - January 29th, 2010
It’s fair to offer it to as many different groups as possible. But I agree with you - if the purpose is to lessen the Utah housing inventory, then it should go to people who haven’t already purchased the home. Man, the incentives for buying are piling up fast.
We have one here in CA that is for $10K. They appropriated like $100 million for it and so it sounds like it’ll last for a while. It is a tax rebate though. The problem is its also only for new homes, which at least in CA is not the problem. To me this was just a bunch of legislators hooking up the homebuilders who probably contribute to their campaign. If they wanted to really help the housing problem, they should have made it for used homes or foreclosed homes.
I feel the need to clarify my position with all these subsidies/grants.
I am against 99% of them (including the housing ones)… and get upset when I hear about new ones.
If I hear of a subsidy, it means one of two things:
1) If the government can afford to pay me this, then they took too much from me in taxes.
2) If I know the gov’t is operating at a deficit. I’ll pay for it in higher taxes anyway.
Point is, I don’t want “my share” of gov’t help… I want to give less to the gov’t in the first place.
I object as strongly to those who say, “why is all this money going to help those who were irresponsible, where’s the help for me?” as I do to helping the irresponsibles. I think there is a very small limit in which a gov’t should act to encourage behavior, be it good or bad. When they offer subsidies like Utah has done, it pulls people who feel similarly to me into their nets.
Sorry if I’m an a-hole. But this just makes me mad. Where did the gov’t get the right to take my earnings, just so it could be redistributed… to me or anyone else?