Arizona Real Estate Notebook

This being an election year and all, I would have bet a nickel the politicians would extend the $8,000 first time home buyer tax credit. The silly and crazy expensive program was the “cash for clunkers” for U.S. housing.

When a government housing program is so bad that the housing lobby stops pushing for it, you know it’s a stinker. Either that, or probably more likely, the housing lobby wants to spend their political capital on some other (probably silly) program.

Two groups that once lobbied strongly for the credit — the National Association of Realtors and the National Association of Home Builders — have no plans to make a push for its extension, according to spokesmen from both groups. And the word from NAR’s government-affairs department is that another extension isn’t in the cards.