Hopes run high for tax-credit expansion

"We are pushing for expansion of the tax credit, and we are very close to winning this one," said David Kittle, MBA's outgoing chairman.

The tax credit has been credited with boosting home sales, and mortgage applications, as first-time buyers came out in force this summer.

"Hundreds of thousands of home buyers have come off the sidelines because of the credit, and if we lose it we risk losing the stability that is creeping backing into the housing market and the economy overall," said Robert Story Jr., a Seattle mortgage banker and the incoming chairman of the MBA, which opened its annual convention here Monday.

Political analyst Paul Begala, an adviser in the Clinton administration, predicted the credit would be extended, in part because of a feeling among a lot of the American people that they have gotten little out of the financial bailout that kept large institutions afloat.