Has anyone here bought a home this year? If so how did your federal tax rebate work out?

CNN says that first time home purchases made a 7 to 10 percent jump in the last two months due to people wanting their tax rebate. I wonder if these enthusiastic first-time home buyers who want to “take advantage” of the $8000 federal tax rebate realize that they hype associated with it is pushing up the price of their already overvalued home more then the amount of the rebate, and that with a loan the payments over time will amount to many times more than the $8000 tax rebate’s worth. This is another example of government and media hyping the mortgage/investment banking market to drive up prices to unrealistic levels and using American home-buying consumers as sheep to be sheared. It’s the consumer being taken advantage of here. If there is a tax rebate it should be, first of all, a certain PERCENTAGE of the overall purchase, not $8000 across the board for any home be it $150K or $500K. Secondly it should be fixed and not have a deadline to fan the flames of a buying panic, which would lead to another housing bubble.

They’re really pushing the hype. One example of how bad it can be, given the market you’re in, is here in San Diego people who even bought as early as 2004 are still underwater. They’ve put up whatever down-payment they could afford and then made all those mortgage payments only to still have their house be worth less than they bought it for.

They could have rented an apartment with equal square footage for the last 5 years for less money than their mortgage payments and all that excess cash could have been saved in the bank.

Oh but the realtors told them that it’s a good investment and the money would be paid to them in equity. And they bought it…

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money.cnn.com/2009/12/22/real_estate/november_existing_home_sales/index.htm