Canadian in US, Obamas tax rebate and house buying questions

Hi All,
Lots of googling before finding this site, but am I ever glad I did . I did lots of searching and found some help but none completely relevant to my situation.
I apologise at the onset if this gets a little long-winded, I just dont want to miss any details that could be important.

I am a Canadian citizen in the final stages of achieving my green card for the US. I am presently just waiting for a medical and interveiw date. I am married to a US citizen and we have a beautiful son together. For all of our three year relationship, I have owned a condo in Canada , worked in Canada and travelled to the US for my time-off. I work in oil and gas as a travelling worker. My work schedule was basically 27 days out of town then 7-10 days time off. For the majority of the relationship my wife has rented in the US , and I have visited her on my breaks. She did spend a little time (6months) at our place in Canada when the kiddo was young. For the last 3 years I have had a renter in my spare room in the Canadian property. His rent didnt even come close to the mortgage payment so I never mentioned it as income. Now being so close to a green card, I have decided to rent out the whole condo on a year long lease. Trying to sell it right now would be fruitless.
Now I am about 60 days away from my green card and our rental lease in the US is up at the end of May. With all this talk of low interest on mortgage rates and Obamas tax rebate, we thought of the option of buying a home. Well to cut a long story short, we started looking around and found a beautiful home we fell in love with. My questions are:
1) Does it sound like I will be eligable for the tax credit being as this home will be my first home in the US? i.e. will the IRS look at the foreign property as principal residence because I will be freshly emigrated this year, therefore leaving me ineligable for the tax credit.
2) If they do look at my Canadian property, would I legally just be able to call it' rental property' for the last three years, being as I have rarely lived there and I had a renter?
3) I will be actively seeking work in the US but haven't come across too many opportunities at this point. As such I plan on staying with the Canadain company and just flying back and forth every month untill something adequate comes up in the US. If I were eligable for the tax credit , I planned on working a little in the US this year just so I could get a W2 and claim the credit. Does this sound right?
Thanks in advance for any help and guidance.

I haven't bothered to look up this specific credit, but the key to all of these things is usually that your tax home must be in the US, i.e. you are filing a 1040 every year and have an SSN. From the sounds of it you will be dual-status in 2009 so I doubt you qualify for it.

Read IRS publication 519, because you'll have to anyway to figure out how to file taxes for 2009.

Thanks a lot,
I read through that publication and it looks like I may be eligable, I'd be better off calling the IRS I guess since this is a new credit.It also seems like I could bypass dual-status by filing jointly with my wife for the whole 2009. My main concern though is whether they'd consider my Condo in Canada a primary residence and not consider me a first time homebuyer in the US because of it?

If your principal residence is currently Canada, you have to file dual-status in the US for 2009 otherwise you will end up getting taxed twice on your income prior to moving to the US.

The IRS has no clue what you may or may not own in Canada so I wouldn't worry about that issue.

Since you do pay taxes, have a SSN, and live full time here, and are here legally, you should be entitled to any tax benefits.
The U.S. government wouldn't know if you owned property outside the country unless it was disclosed in your U.S. taxes as foreign property, foreign rental income, etc.

I remember when I was applying for my first U.S. mortgage, it was really frustrating because none of the banks have any record nor will look at any of my foreign investments/properties and financial records.

So I am guessing you have looked into having the house in the wifes name? (You co sign.) Also look into 'quit claiming' your CDN property to an LLC. (I believe it would save you on taxes, plus free you up personally, and, will give you a layer of protection from tenants lawsuits.) Not an expert on this topic but going through pretty much your exact situation for getting a house. These are some of my answers that I need to research more about too.

Having a corporation owning a house is generally a bad idea, exposes you to capital gains tax for starters.