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If you're considering buying a home with the first-time homebuyer tax credit, you can forget about it unless you can sign a contract in the next few days. That credit is set to expire December 1, which would mean a very quick turnaround to buy a house. But the timeline's even tighter than it looks, for a reason you may not have even considered.
Here in King County, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is a work furlough day, to save the county money. The next working day after that is November 30th. That's the last day the county can approve the paperwork to make sure you beat that December 1 deadline. So that means you'd better have your loan funded by November 24, less than a month from now. That's tough to do, and it may be just one of many challenges you run into beating out the first-time homebuyer deadline.
If you're a homebuyer looking to cash in on the first-time buyer tax credit, here's the attitude you might want to take. First-time buyer Sherrana Kildun says, "As soon as I walked in the door, I was sort of sold." Sherrana and her husband Kevin bought the first home they looked at in Tacoma last month. And they're not alone. Home re-sales in the U.S. jumped in September by more than 9%. to the highest level in two years, largely fueled by a new deal for first time home buyers. Essentially, first-time buyers can get a tax credit of 10% of the sales price, up to $8,000, if the sale is complete by the end of November.
That's why Rhys Evans, of Landover Mortgage in Bellevue, says, "If you're looking now, you probably want to get into a contract soon." Evans says the Thanksgiving holiday and King County work furlough day give you 18 working days in November to sign a contract and fund a loan. That gets you in before the last day the county could record the transaction, November 30th.
Other complicating factors? You'll need to provide more credit information, and you'll have to deal with a more complicated appraisal process. And, even though it may be a buyer's market, you'll have some competition that could slow you down too. Evans says, "In that first-time homebuyer's price range of maybe 250 to 400 thousand, there could be a little rush on the market maybe during the next few weeks because of people trying to take advantage of the tax credit."
Right now, Congress is considering extending the first time homebuyer tax credit past December 1. But there's a stumbling block there, in that the IRS is now investigating hundreds of possibly fraudulent claims for this credit. For more information on how this credit works, follow this link. For more details on Landover Mortgage and the expert you heard from in this story, click here.
Here in King County, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is a work furlough day, to save the county money. The next working day after that is November 30th. That's the last day the county can approve the paperwork to make sure you beat that December 1 deadline. So that means you'd better have your loan funded by November 24, less than a month from now. That's tough to do, and it may be just one of many challenges you run into beating out the first-time homebuyer deadline.
If you're a homebuyer looking to cash in on the first-time buyer tax credit, here's the attitude you might want to take. First-time buyer Sherrana Kildun says, "As soon as I walked in the door, I was sort of sold." Sherrana and her husband Kevin bought the first home they looked at in Tacoma last month. And they're not alone. Home re-sales in the U.S. jumped in September by more than 9%. to the highest level in two years, largely fueled by a new deal for first time home buyers. Essentially, first-time buyers can get a tax credit of 10% of the sales price, up to $8,000, if the sale is complete by the end of November.
That's why Rhys Evans, of Landover Mortgage in Bellevue, says, "If you're looking now, you probably want to get into a contract soon." Evans says the Thanksgiving holiday and King County work furlough day give you 18 working days in November to sign a contract and fund a loan. That gets you in before the last day the county could record the transaction, November 30th.
Other complicating factors? You'll need to provide more credit information, and you'll have to deal with a more complicated appraisal process. And, even though it may be a buyer's market, you'll have some competition that could slow you down too. Evans says, "In that first-time homebuyer's price range of maybe 250 to 400 thousand, there could be a little rush on the market maybe during the next few weeks because of people trying to take advantage of the tax credit."
Right now, Congress is considering extending the first time homebuyer tax credit past December 1. But there's a stumbling block there, in that the IRS is now investigating hundreds of possibly fraudulent claims for this credit. For more information on how this credit works, follow this link. For more details on Landover Mortgage and the expert you heard from in this story, click here.
