Roundup: Don't Forget That DC Has a Home Buyer Tax Credit Too

• May 13th 2010

by UrbanTurf Staff

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Here’s a quick rundown of interesting real estate stories making headlines this week:

• The Barnes Dance that DC is trialing at 7th and H in Chinatown went live yesterday morning. Check out the video:
  
  
  
  The Barnes Dance, aka pedestrian scramble, is a traffic pattern in which pedestrians own the street during one-third of traffic light cycles, crossing in all directions including diagonally. Greater Greater Washington has lots of coverage of DC’s trial, including an analysis of whether the traffic pattern should be implemented at Georgetown’s busy intersection M Street and Wisconsin Avenue.
   
• From the files of stuff-DC-home-buyers-should-know-about-but-most-don’t comes a reminder that the District has its own first-time home buyer tax credit, to the tune of $5,000. Not quite the eight grand that was offered by the Feds, but still a material amount of money for most home buyers. Redfin has the details.
   
• The DC metro area saw an increase in foreclosures last month: the District’s foreclosures were up 64 percent, Virginia’s 19 percent, and Maryland’s 3 percent. The Washington Business Journal’s report reminds us how much worse things could be, however. Five unfortunate states — California, Florida, Michigan, Illinois, and Nevada — account for over half of all foreclosures in the US.
   
• Mortgage rates dipped back below 5 percent last week. The economic debacle in Greece caused investors around the world to buy up US treasuries, which brought down their rates and, by extension, the rates of mortgages. The rate on a 30-year fixed averaged 4.96 percent last week, the lowest it’s been in six weeks.

Finally, here are UrbanTurf’s three most popular posts of the last week in case you missed them:

1. Chipotle Turns Down Free Rent East of the River
2. A Report From the West End 25 Opening
3. “If I Had $1 Million” Listing: Outdoor Oasis in Logan Circle

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/roundup_dont_forget_that_dc_has_a_home_buyer_tax_credit_too/2067.