WASHINGTON - Now that Congress has fixed the crucial flaw in last year's home-purchase tax credit, who will be able to make use of the new and improved version? And what about timing: How long do buyers have to locate a house and close the deal to qualify?

These are just two of the flurry of questions surrounding the $8,000 housing credit for 2009 authorized by Congress' sprawling, $789 billion stimulus plan. So here's a quick rundown on the credit and several other real estate-related benefits in the package.

Though the Senate version of the bill would have created a much more generous and costly tax credit - up to $15,000 per purchase with no limitation to first-time buyers - it was quickly rejected in the conference committee. Negotiators added $500 to last year's $7,500 credit and made the 2009 version nonrepayable. There's still widespread misunderstanding on the issue, but qualified purchasers who closed in 2008 will not reap the benefits of the 2009 amendments. They're stuck with the old model, and will have to pay back the credit - more correctly an interest-free loan from the government - over the coming 15 years.

People who buy homes between Jan. 1 and Dec. 1 of this year may qualify for the $8,000 nonrepayable updated credit. But they'll still have to pass most of the key eligibility tests imposed under the 2008 program.

For example, they must be "first-time" buyers under the 2008 definition: Either you've never owned a house before, or you haven't owned or co-owned one during the three years preceding the date you close on your 2009 purchase.

Carefully planning the timing of your closing could be worth thousands of dollars to you. Say you once owned a house earlier in the decade, but sold it on March 25, 2006. If you close on a house in 2009 before March 25, you lose eligibility for the $8,000 credit. Push settlement back to March 26 or later - anytime before Dec. 1, when the new credit program's eligibility period expires - and you're $8,000 to the better.

As in the 2008 credit, there's a household income test as well. The 2009 version phases out eligibility for the credit starting at $75,000 adjusted gross income for single taxpayers, and $150,000 for joint-filing couples. The 2009 program also removes last year's prohibition against purchases financed with state and local tax-exempt mortgage revenue bond programs, which are popular among moderate-income homebuyers in many parts of the country. This year such loans won't eliminate your eligibility for the $8,000 credit.

Under the 2009 program, the house you buy must be used as your principal residence, not a second home or investment property. But that residence can take a wide variety of forms, including, "houseboats, housetrailers, cooperative apartments, (and) condominiums" among others, according to IRS rules.

Congressional sponsors of the revised tax credit program offered no projections of how many additional home sales are likely to be stimulated this year by the nonrepayable feature, but the National Association of Realtors has weighed in with its own estimates: 300,000 more houses will sell during 2009 as a direct result of the credit. Add in the so-called "ripple effects" - higher expenditures on furnishings, appliances, remodeling materials, brokerage commissions, moving costs, etc. - and the economic jolt could be significant over a relatively short period.

Other sections of the stimulus package that haven't received much attention, but still could benefit large numbers of owners and buyers, include:

• An increase in the maximum mortgage amounts permitted for fundings by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration - essentially a rollback to 2008's high-cost area limits, which range as high as $729,750 in the most expensive markets of California and portions of the East Coast such as metropolitan Washington, D.C. That's potentially important for all buyers - not just first-timers - in those areas because it should open the door to lower interest rates on the big loans they need to purchase even median-priced houses. The current high-cost area limits top out at $625,500.

• Hefty increases and extensions for tax credits to stimulate "qualified energy efficiency improvements" in existing homes. The expanded credits cover improvements to air-conditioning systems, or natural gas and propane furnaces and water heaters.

• $2 billion in additional funds for local governments and nonprofit groups to enable them to acquire and renovate foreclosed and vacant dwellings that are depressing property values - and raising crime rates - in urban and suburban neighborhoods hit hard by the housing and mortgage messes.

• Write to Ken Harney at P.O. Box 15281, Chevy Chase, MD 20815, or via e-mail at kenharney@earthlink.net.

The index of pending home resales climbed 6.3 percent to 87.7, the first increase since August, from a revised 82.5 in November, the National Association of Realtors said in a report today in Washington. Pending sales rose in two of four regions.

Record foreclosures are pushing down home values, making homes more affordable for those buyers able to get financing. Still, restrictive lending rules and further price declines are likely to scare away the majority of purchasers, indicating the real-estate recession will persist for a fourth year in 2009.

“Lower prices probably have attracted some buyers,” said David Sloan, a senior economist at 4Cast Inc. in New York, who projected an increase. Still, “the rise may be difficult to sustain.”

Stocks rose following the report, reversing earlier losses, while Treasury securities dropped. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index was up 0.1 percent at 824.89 at 10:28 a.m. in New York. The builder composite index jumped 6.1 percent. The yield on the 10- year note was 2.80 percent, up from 2.72 at the close yesterday.

Economists forecast pending sales to be unchanged in December after an originally reported drop of 4 percent in the prior month, according to the median forecast of 28 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Estimates ranged from a drop of 5 percent to a 2 percent increase.

Record Vacancies

A record 19 million U.S. houses stood empty at the end of 2008, the U.S. Census Bureau said in a report today. The vacancy rate, the share of empty homes for sale, rose to 2.9 percent in the last quarter, the most in data that goes back to 1956.

The pending purchase report showed resales jumped 13 percent in both the South and Midwest regions. Signed purchase contracts declined 3.7 percent in the West and 1.7 percent in the Northeast.

“The biggest gains were in areas with the biggest improvements in affordability,” Lawrence Yun, the group’s chief economist, said in a statement. The NAR’s affordability index reached a record high in December.

The Realtors group, whose pending sales data go back to January 2001, started publishing the index in March 2005. The gauge was up 2.1 percent from December 2007.

Pending resales are considered a leading indicator because they track contract signings. Closings, which typically occur a month or two later, are tallied in the Realtors’ monthly existing-home sales report. That report for January is scheduled to be released Feb. 25.

December Jump

Purchases of previously owned homes, which account for about 90 percent of the market, climbed 6.5 percent in December from the prior month as foreclosures helped drive median prices down 15 percent from a year earlier.

December sales of new homes, which account for the remainder, dropped to a record low, a report from the Commerce Department showed last week.

The Obama administration is considering giving government guarantees to mortgage holders that modify the terms of their loans to stem the record surge in foreclosures. The proposal, which may also have the taxpayer share in the cost of reducing mortgage payments, is aimed at shielding lenders from default after they loosen loan terms for struggling borrowers.

Lower mortgage rates are already making homes more affordable. The rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage averaged 5.33 percent in December, down from 6.09 percent the previous month, according to data from Freddie Mac.

Still, foreclosures continue to mount. Delinquency filings increased 41 percent in December from a year earlier, RealtyTrac Inc., a seller of default data, said last month.

Prices Drop

Average house prices have fallen by about a quarter from their peaks in mid-2006, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index. Property values in 20 U.S. cities declined 18.2 percent in November from a year earlier, the fastest drop on record, according to a report last week.

The U.S. housing market lost $3.3 trillion in value last year and almost one in six owners with mortgages owed more than their homes were worth, according to a report today from Zillow.com. The median estimated home price declined 11.6 percent in 2008 to $192,119 and homeowners lost $1.4 trillion in value in the fourth quarter alone, the Seattle-based real estate data service said.

The slow pace of sales is hurting homebuilders. Ryland Group Inc., based in Calabasas, California, reported its eighth straight quarterly loss on Jan. 28. October and November were “two of the slowest months I’ve ever experienced,” Chief Executive Officer R. Chad Dreier, who has been in the business almost 32 years, said on a conference call with analysts.

Cutting Costs

D.R. Horton Inc., the third-largest U.S. homebuilder by revenue, today reported its smallest loss in five quarters as costs and charges fell faster than revenue.

“Market conditions in the homebuilding industry continued to deteriorate during our first fiscal quarter,” Chairman Donald R. Horton said in the statement. “Rising foreclosures, high inventory levels of both new and existing homes, increasing unemployment, tight credit for homebuyers and eroding consumer confidence” were to blame, he said.

A majority of banks made it tougher for consumers and businesses to get credit in the past three months even as lenders received infusions of taxpayer funds, a Federal Reserve report showed yesterday.

The pain is reverberating beyond builders. DuPont Co., the third-biggest U.S. chemical maker, last week reported a fourth- quarter loss of $629 million.

Profit in the Wilmington, Delaware-based company’s safety and protection business fell 62 percent as sales declined for housing products such as Tyvek weather barrier and Corian countertops. DuPont said it will eliminate 8,000 contractor jobs, twice the target announced in December.

A report from the Commerce Department yesterday showed spending on U.S. private residential construction fell 3.2 percent in December after a 4.1 percent decline the previous month. Last year, spending on home building plummeted a record 27 percent.