Question: Well, since a couple of you mentioned it on here recently, I thought > I would give everyone an update on our house situation. I think I > posted something on here a couple of months back about how we were going > to use a credit union financed home equity loan to purchase a house. > That fell through. At the last second, the credit union notified us > that, since we would no longer be living in our present property, the > loan would be considered a “business loan”, and not a home equity loan. > The interest rate they wanted to charge was then more than 8%, so we > said no. (it was all annoying, because I notified them from the start > that we were purchasing a house to move into, not as an investment – so > they knew from the start that we would not be staying here)
> Anyway, after that fell through as a source of financing, we looked > into getting an FHA rehab loan. We got set up through Wells Fargo for > one of those, and then unexpectedly found a HUD home listed for auction. > We looked at it, were impressed, and we won the auction for $60k. > (house previously sold for $117k 3 years ago) We will be putting about > $25k in repairs into it, which will be rolled into the loan. So our > total loan will be about $85k. It will have new appliances, new roof, > new water heater, new heat pump & heating system, new vinyl flooring in > kitchen & 1 bathroom, new doors – plus many other things too numerous to > mention as part of the rehab.
> Anyway, we signed the documents, and have been in the process of > getting bids for the work. We got an early bid for all the work, but > then a family friend highly recommended someone, so we allowed him to > come out, look the place over, and then I waited and waited. Finally > got a bid from him, and then we prepared to sign the documents so that > he could do the work. At the last second, he called and said there was > a problem, that his work crew had joined the Navy. (yes, that is > seriously what he said) After speaking to someone else, I found out > that the real issue was related to insurance for the project.
> Supposedly, he felt really bad about ditching at the last second, so > he called a friend who lives closer, and told him to take care of us. > This guy called me early this week, and I told him I was done messing > around, but that the fellow from the 1st large company we had gotten a > bid from was out of town this week, so if he could inspect the place, > look over my list of necessary work, and get us a bid by today > (Saturday), I would consider him for the work.
> He seemed very gung-ho about the project at first, but after I > emailed him a complete list of the needed repairs, he never followed > through on contacting the real estate agent to look things over.
> Anyway, I ended up feeling like I wasted nearly 3 weeks, partly > because I wanted to support a smaller, family business, and partly > because of my nature to want to keep hunting for a better deal. I was > pretty annoyed, because due to this delay, we will probably have to file > for an extension on closing, which will cost us a few hundred.
> However, the upside from the delay is tremendous: I just heard that > congress passed a $6,500 housing tax credit, which we can take advantage > of! If we had picked a general contractor 3 weeks ago, and closed on > the loan already, we would not have been eligible.
> What is great about this is that it is a REFUNDABLE tax credit. This > means that even if we already get our taxes down to zero with the child > tax credit, we can have up to a $6,500 check issued to us at tax time > next year. Yippee!
Answer: I believe you are keeping the first home. If so, you own two homes. Of course you will call the new home your primary residence, but you won’t be living there for a long time based on all the work contemplated. The rules I read were not comprehensive enough to be sure of eligibility. You must have checked them out already.
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