The verdict as to the effectiveness of the buyer's credit: it isn't going to stop the housing market's fall. All the credits did was push people to buy to take advantage of the credit. If everything else was picking up it might have worked. As it is, now that the credit is gone, buyers are gone thanks to the credit's expiration pushing sales forward.

The housing market will likely recover some in the next few months as the 'sales forward' effect will diminish. Still there won't be a big rush back; the economy is still weak and the action of the housing market after the credit's expiration indicates that. If Congress stays out of it the housing market can contract further and perhaps find a real market bottom. The credits didn't do that simply because the housing market was too hot for too long, fostered by interest rates that were too low for too long combined with a Congress and a couple of Presidents too eager to get people into houses they could not afford as if that were some kind of measure of our prosperity. Indeed, with ECRI showing continued economic slowing, there is not much to keep prices higher.

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May Housing Starts Stink Pointing to Another Housing Slump