Realtors’ lobbying and the $8,000 first time home buyers tax credit

The Times connects lobbying efforts and the $8,000 tax credit for first time home buyers.

Realtors mobilized their 1.2 million members across the country to write and call their representatives and senators to urge extension of the credit, warning that failure to do so could cause this year’s housing market uptick to grind to a halt.

Several dozen of them flew to Washington recently to visit members of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Banking Committee to press the point. In case they didn’t get the message, Realtors sent more than 500,000 letters to Capitol Hill and made nearly 13,000 phone calls to Senate offices last weekend to corral support in advance of a key procedural vote on Monday, according to a spokesman.

. . .

Public disclosures show Realtors have spent nearly $14 million lobbying Congress so far this year, and their political action committee gave about $12 million to candidates in the last election, according to the federal campaign finance records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Meanwhile, the paper’s editorial page opposes the extension of the tax credit.