UPDATE (Feb 13, 7:30pm): The Associated Press reported the following: First-time buyers are defined as those who haven't owned a house for at least three years.  The tax credit of 10 percent of the value of a home, up to $8,000, would cost the government an estimated $6.6 billion. It would start phasing out for couples with incomes above $150,000 and single taxpayers with incomes above $75,000. Buyers would have to repay the credit if they sold their homes within three years.

UPDATE (Feb 12, 11:15am):  Latest info about the compromise stimulus bill has the credit becoming an $8,000 tax credit (non-repayable) so it is a full credit, but it looks like it will apply to homes purchased by first time buyers between Jan 1, 2009 and August 31, 2009. 

Presumably, the repayable version $7500 "credit" would still be an option for those who already purchased last year after April 9th.  This are still many details unclear and this is subject to change so make sure to check back in to my new posts about it here.  I will update as I get more information.

This is asinine.  In an abrupt "head fake" it looks like the the $15,000 homebuyer tax credit is dead on arrival.  According to the AP, the House and Senate compromise stimulus bill was scaled back and part of that scaling back was the removal of the $15,000 homebuyer tax credit.

I wouldn't care if a $15,000 credit never came out of this bill in the first place, but the way it happened is worse than it not happening at all.  The stupidest part is getting buyer's hopes for it up with all the press it got and now "taking it away", which comes across as a "loss" to the market.  This actually harms the psyche of buyers and amounts to piling on negative news.  Unnecessary "phantom" negative news for that matter.  As I have said, I'm not sure it was good long run policy for a tax credit like this anyway, and there are signs the housing market is starting to correct itself anyway, but it surely would have had an impact to the housing market and provided an additional boost to speed recovery.  Since the housing market is such a large sector of the economy, providing that boost could have probably pushed the entire economy in the right direction sooner - more so than a lot of the other spending in the package.  With all the talk about how much help the economy needs I am really surprised by this move to cut down the bill to below both the individual bill sizes from the House and Senate.

The bill still has to go back to both the House and Senate for full votes, so there could be further changes - check back in....

FYI: The $7500 tax "credit" bill already in existence doesn't look to be changed.