I have a new Blog!!! Check out http://leslieauton.com. Thanks

There will be an open house at 4142 Mineral Lane on Sunday, March 22 from 1pm to 3:30pm.  If you are looking for a new home in the Denver / Lincolnton area please drop by the open house in Miners Creek. 

Directions from Denver (Hwy 150 & 16 intersection) – Hwy 150 West toward Lincolnton; Left at 2nd stop light onto King Wilkinson Rd; Right on Furnace Rd EXT; Right into Miners Creek  community; Left on Mineral Lane; Last house on left. 

Please continue to re-visit the site for information about the following new businesses in and around Denver, NC:

1. Family Dough Donuts
2. The Landing Restaurant, Tiki Hut and Marina
3. Giovanni’s
4. NY Bagel’s
5. Gepeto’s

More info coming soon…

We have three new lots on the market in James Plantation — lot 25, lot 34 & lot 35.   Please see the slide show for pictures of the community.  If you have questions about any of these lots please contact me at leslie@hechtdevelopment.com or 704-809-2503. 

I received the following information from the 2009 NAHB (National Association of Home Builders) Chairman, Joe Robson, this afternoon…thought it highlighted many of the points of the new stimulus bill…

 Key Provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

  Tax Provisions 

• $8,000 first-time home buyer, true tax credit (no repayment) for the purchase of a principle residence between January 1 and December 1, 2009. Recaptured if home is sold within three years. Removes the restriction on the use of tax credit proceeds with Housing Finance Agency-issued tax exempt mortgage revenue bonds.
• Short-term gap financing for Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) projects:
• 1. Provision allowing states to turn in portion of 2009 LIHTC allocations for cash.
• 2. Special appropriation of $2 billion in HOME funds.
• Up to a ten-year deferral of tax from business debt cancelled as part of a repurchase or restructuring.
• 5-year carryback of 2008 net operating losses for businesses with gross receipts of less than $15 million (three year average).
• Extension of enhanced bonus depreciation.
• Extension of increased small business expensing.
• Enhancements to the section 25C program for energy efficiency remodeling improvements to existing homes.
• One-year patch of the Alternative Minimum Tax.
• Increase New Markets Tax Credit allocating authority for 2008 and 2009.
• Delays for one year the start of 3% government contractor withholding requirement.

Appropriations Provisions

• $2 billion for full year payments to owners of Section 8 project based rental assistance properties.
• $2.25 billion through HOME program and Low Income Housing Tax Credit program to fill financing gaps.
• $1 billion for CDBG.
• $2 billion for Neighborhood stabilization program.
• $1.5 billion for homelessness prevention activities (help with rents, etc).
• $250 million for energy retrofitting and green investments in HUD assisted projects.
• $1 billion for Section 502 direct loans under the Rural Housing Service.
• $10.4 billion for Section 502 guaranteed loans under the Rural Housing Service.
• $27.5 billion for highway spending.

Other Key Provision

• Increases in FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loan limits to 2008 levels.

Check out this waterfront lot with a home to be built under $350,000.   The seller would be willing to sell the lot only for $114,900.  

Wednesday, February 4, 2009 6:20 PM EST
The Associated Press
By DAVID ESPO Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate voted Wednesday night to give a tax break of up to $15,000 to homebuyers in hopes of revitalizing the housing industry, a victory for Republicans eager to leave their mark on a mammoth economic stimulus bill at the heart of President Barack Obama’s recovery plan. The tax break was approved without dissent and came on a day in which Obama pushed back pointedly against Republican critics of the legislation even as he reached across party lines to consider a reduction in the spending it contains.

“Let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the essential,” Obama said as Senate Republicans stepped up their criticism of the bill’s spending and pressed for additional tax cuts and relief for homeowners. He warned that failure to act quickly “will turn crisis into a catastrophe and guarantee a longer recession.”

Democratic leaders have pledged to have legislation ready for Obama’s signature by the end of next week.

While they concede privately they will have to accept some spending reductions along the way, conservative Republicans failed in their initial attempts to force deep cuts in the bill.

Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., who advanced the homebuyers tax break, said it was intended to help revive the housing industry, which has virtually collapsed in the wake of a credit crisis that began last fall.

The proposal would allow a tax credit of 10 percent of the value of new or existing residences, up to a $15,000 limit. Current law provides for a $7,500 tax break but only for first-time homebuyers.

Isakson’s office said the proposal would cost the government an estimated $19 billion.

Democrats readily agreed to the proposal, although it may be changed or even deleted as the stimulus measure makes its way through Congress over the next 10 days or so.

Other GOP attempts to change the measure went down to defeat. The most sweeping of them, by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., failed on a mostly party-line vote of 36-61. It would have replaced the White House-backed legislation with a series of tax cuts on personal and business income and capital gains at the same time it made cuts passed during the Bush administration permanent.

“This bill needs to be cut down,” Republican Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said on the Senate floor. He cited $524 million for a State Department program that he said envisions creating 388 jobs. “That comes to $1.35 million per job,” he added.

After days of absorbing rhetorical attacks, Obama and Senate Democrats mounted a counteroffensive against Republicans who say tax cuts alone can cure the economy.

Obama said the criticisms he has heard “echo the very same failed economic theories that led us into this crisis in the first place, the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems.”

“I reject those theories and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change,” said the president, who was elected with an Electoral College landslide last fall and enjoys high public approval ratings at the outset of his term.

Obama did not mention any Republicans by name, and most have signaled their support for varying amounts of new spending.

Even so, the president repeated his retort word for word in late afternoon, yet softened the partisan impact of his comments by meeting at the White House with senators often willing to cross party lines.

His first visitor was Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, a moderate GOP lawmaker. Later he met with Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Ben Nelson, D-Neb.

“I gave him a list of provisions” for possible deletion from the bill, Collins told reporters outside the White House. Among them were $8 billion to upgrade facilities and information technology at the State Department and funds for combating a possible outbreak of pandemic flu and promoting cyber-security. The latter two items, she said, are “near and dear to her,” but belong in routine legislation and not an economic stimulus measure.

Collins and Nelson have been working on a list of possible spending cuts totaling roughly $50 billion, although they have yet to make details public.

———

Associated Press writers Jennifer Loven and Andrew Taylor contributed to this story.