MCC tax credit? (Austin: mortgage broker, loan, broker)

[jojobeans2]

Has anyone applied for this credit and benefitted from it? Just trying to see if it is worth the hassle of applying and the application fee.

[DSL_PWR]

Do you meet the criteria set to qualify? If you do then you might as well try to get the money.

As long as your household income is less than $110k and the price of the home is less than $370k you can try.

Max credit is $2k.

[jojobeans2]

I do qualify based on income and the home purchase price, but there is a cost of $75 plus 1% of the loan which brings my closing costs considerably higher. The only reason I would pay that is if I can actually benefit from the certificate. Is it hard to claim?

[DSL_PWR]

There is tons of paperwork involved.

I would speak to your mortgage broker and see what they say.

If the closing cost and loan value will be higher then that will totally offset the claimed savings. Just my opinion.

[testmo]

at the time i purchased my home i qualified and i didnt feel my closing costs were prohibitively higher. there was barely any additional paperwork that i had to complete. a quick little online test for first time home buyers and another form to sign. my broker took care of the rest.

ive had my house running close to 3 years now (2 tax periods). i have thoroughly enjoyed getting a big added tax refund from this (over $1,500 close to 2k i think) which i will continue to get until i nearly pay off my loan (trying to be more slow about that than i would be if my rate wasnt 3.5%). now with my partner we earn significantly more than i did when i bought the home, but that doesnt matter i still get the tax refund.

when i refied to the 3.5% last year i had to send less than a handful of documents to the agency in Austin and they gave me the new certificate. you do have to do this in order to keep the refund if you change your mortgage in any way. wasnt difficult

is there really any reason more people dont do this? i dont see a downside , but i dont know many people (including first time home buyers) that have it. the amount of a refund does adjust over time as your mortgage gets less and less.

[jojobeans2]

Originally Posted by testmo

at the time i purchased my home i qualified and i didnt feel my closing costs were prohibitively higher. there was barely any additional paperwork that i had to complete. a quick little online test for first time home buyers and another form to sign. my broker took care of the rest.

ive had my house running close to 3 years now (2 tax periods). i have thoroughly enjoyed getting a big added tax refund from this (over $1,500 close to 2k i think) which i will continue to get until i nearly pay off my loan (trying to be more slow about that than i would be if my rate wasnt 3.5%). now with my partner we earn significantly more than i did when i bought the home, but that doesnt matter i still get the tax refund.

when i refied to the 3.5% last year i had to send less than a handful of documents to the agency in Austin and they gave me the new certificate. you do have to do this in order to keep the refund if you change your mortgage in any way. wasnt difficult

is there really any reason more people dont do this? i dont see a downside , but i dont know many people (including first time home buyers) that have it. the amount of a refund does adjust over time as your mortgage gets less and less.

Thanks for this response! You're right, it's so hard to find out more information about this and it seems like not that many people apply for this credit. It should give you around 2k a year, right? My lender said she can put together the paperwork for me so that it wouldn't take too long. I just want to make sure that they don't give any trouble when trying to claim the credit later on.

Can we really claim it until we pay off the loan?

[Qwazelbee]

What lender are you using? I'm in the same position right now, and the ones I've reached out to about the MCC have been considerably less responsive than non-MCC approved lenders.

[jojobeans2]

Cornerstone, they've been pretty awesome so far. I think it really depends on what mortgage officer you deal with. What area are you buying in?

[Qwazelbee]

Thanks, I'll give them a shout. We're looking in the South Belt Ellington area. Not a whole lot of inventory at the moment.

*Edit* - I already applied with them 2 days ago and no response. I guess the mortgage officer can make all the difference.

[key2thecity]

Originally Posted by jojobeans2

Has anyone applied for this credit and benefitted from it? Just trying to see if it is worth the hassle of applying and the application fee.

We recieved this credit when we purchased. There was very little paperwork and we recieved a $2000 tax credit this year. Our income has greatly increased but we can still claim the credit for the life of the loan.