Legislation aims to help first-time homebuyers
[February 28, 2025]
By Peter Hancock and Jade Aubrey
SPRINGFIELD – As the cost of housing continues to rise, Illinois
realtors are pushing legislation to make it easier for first-time
homebuyers to save for a down payment.
Senate Bill 148 would enable Illinois residents to open a special kind
of savings account that could only be used to pay eligible costs for the
purchase of a single-family residence. Deposits into those accounts
would be deductible from state income taxes with some limitations.
The deductions would be limited to $5,000 per year for individuals and
$10,000 per year for joint accounts, up to maximum aggregate amounts of
$25,000 per individual and $50,000 for joint accounts over a 10-year
period.
The accounts would be available to Illinois residents who have not owned
or purchased, either individually or jointly, a single-family residence
during the prior 10 years. That would include both first-time and
“second-chance” buyers – people who may have purchased a home previously
and now want to get into the ownership market again.
“When you look at the median sales price of a home in Illinois in 2024,
it was almost $300,000,” Sen. Christine Castro, D-Elgin, said during a
news conference Thursday. “That’s 8% higher than in 2023 and almost 40%
then higher than in 2019. So you see the rapid (rising) cost of homes.”
Jim Clayton, senior director of state government affairs for the trade
group Illinois Realtors, said the bill is one of several initiatives the
industry has introduced this year to help alleviate the burden of rising
home prices.
The bill has been assigned to the Senate Revenue Committee and is
awaiting further action.
Senate Republicans push property tax relief measures
Senate Republicans are urging passage of a handful of bills they say are
aimed at providing property tax relief to Illinois homeowners, something
they say Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker did not address in his budget
proposal last week.
[to top of second column]
|
A bill pending in the General Assembly would allow first-time home
buyers to set up tax-deductible savings accounts to save up for
their down payment. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Campbell)
“He talked about affordable housing,” Sen. Jil Tracy, R-Quincy, said
during a Statehouse news conference Thursday. “And yes, that’s very
necessary. First-time homeowners are facing difficulties in buying
homes, because what you have to consider most of all is, can you make
the property tax payment? You can’t address affordable housing unless
you first address what’s going on with Illinois’s high property tax and
high property tax amounts.”
Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, is sponsoring Senate Bill 2246, which would
put a cap increases in the assessed valuation of residential property to
the rate of inflation over the previous 12 months. He said it would help
bridge the rapidly increasing gap between what senior homeowners collect
from Social Security and the increasing amounts they’re being charged
for property taxes.
“This is real, this is hurting people, and it’s all scalable,” he said.
“Whether you live in $100,000 home or $200,000 home or $4,000 home, it’s
becoming unaffordable.”
The bill has not yet been assigned to a committee.
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government
coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily
by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. |
