I was in my home office several evenings ago, checking e-mail, when I came across one from a suburban broker I've known for about as long as I've been writing about real estate.
Actually, the broker was forwarding something he had been sent by one of his agents. The e-mail had been sent to her, and she was passing it on with great concern.
It was the kind of e-mail I hate to get, filled with screaming red headlines and obnoxious blue links to "articles" that purport to tell the "real truth."
In this case, though, the e-mail claimed two things as truth.
The first was that pending legislation in the U.S. Senate (already passed by the House) would require an energy license or retrofit for all home sales.
"Beginning one year after enactment of the Cap and Trade Act," the e-mail said, "you won't be able to sell your home unless you retrofit it to comply with the energy- and water-efficiency standards of this act. If it is also passed by the Senate, it will be the largest tax increase any of us has ever experienced."
It continued:
"The Congressional Budget Office - supposedly nonpartisan - estimates that in just a few years the average cost to every family of four will be $6,800 per year. No one is excluded.
"However, once the lower classes feel the pinch in their wallets, you can be sure these voters get a tax refund - even if they pay no taxes at all to offset this new cost.
"Thus, you, Mr. And Mrs. Middle Class, have to pay even more since additional tax dollars will be needed to bail out everyone else."
What was Truth No. 2?
That the health-care legislation contained a 4 percent tax on home sales.
You can imagine why the broker's agent was concerned. With real estate sales troubled, to say the least, the last thing anyone needs is to have the government making it virtually impossible to sell a house and reap even minimal equity from it.
One clue to the illegitimacy of these claims is that the National Association of Realtors has not been all over the legislation in question like flies on flypaper.
In response to a query from me, the association's spokesman, Walt Molony, sent me something called "NAR Mythbusters," which exposes the claims as falsehoods.
According to the Realtors association, the Cap and Trade Act (H.R. 2454) has no requirement that licenses, energy audits, or retrofits are needed before houses can be sold.
