WASHINGTON – A Web site set up by the National Association of Home Builders to explain and promote the new $8,000 first-time homebuyer federal tax credit received a “record” number of hits last month, the advocacy group reported.
About 844,000 people visited the site, www.federalhousing taxcredit.com, in February. On Feb. 18, the day after the President Barack Obama signed the stimulus legislation, visits to the site peaked at about 59,000 unique visitors, NAHB reported.
In a statement, NAHB Chairman Joe Robson said he was “encouraged” to see the number of visitors. “The spike in traffic on our Web site is a strong indication that the tax credit will help get some fence sitters into the market and will help breathe some life back into the depressed housing market.”
NAHB is predicting that the tax credit will “result in about 160,000 additional home sales in 2009.”
“While we were disappointed that the tax credit was not larger and was not extended to all home buyers, Congress did make it a true tax credit,” Robson said. “Unlike the credit that was enacted in 2008, it does not have to be repaid.”
The National Association of Home Builders, a trade group founded in 1942, produces in-depth economic analyses of the home building industry based on private and government data. To learn more, visit www.nahb.org.
