Potential first-time home buyers and prison inmates everywhere are throwing their arms up in celebration. Last night, the Senate approved an extension of the home-buyer tax credit, the $8000 federal credit for prospective first-time home buyers. The extension gives house hunters until Sept. 30th – an extra 90 days after the original June 30th deadline – to close the sale on a new home.
This means anyone means more time not just for anyone who missed the deadline on their own, but also for those who actively tried to close their sale before the original deadline, but weren’t able to purchase the home for whatever reason after they signed the contract. According to the National Association of Realtors, as many as 180,000 buyers would’ve missed the June deadline since they couldn’t close their deals. The extension gives them the extra time they need to make sure the sale goes through.
Wanna make sure this doesn’t happen to you?
If the 90-day extension on the tax credit has convinced to give it a try (or try to apply again), here are a couple of quick tips to make sure you close your deal before they close the door.
• Don’t bide your time. Seriously, if you’re thinking about applying for this credit, don’t think the extra 3 months they tacked on to the deadline means you have two months and two weeks to drag your feet. Even with the added time on the clock, you’ll want to work to close as quickly as possible to close the deal. There are still a number of things that can trip you up on your road to homeownership – such as your lender pulling a “refreshed” credit report that shows a lower score – so if anything does come up, you’ll want to make sure you have the right amount of time to take care of any cracks in the road on the way.
• Stay on-target. Keep in constant contact with your lender/processor and real estate agent. If anything goes wrong in the sale – you missed the original deadline, your refreshed credit report got you declined, there’s an issue with the title, etc. – find out what went wrong exactly and what needs to be done to make it right, and then make sure it gets done in time.
• Check up on your interest rates. If you had originally planned to go take advantage of the tax credit, but missed the June 30 deadline and so are planning to try again, make sure the original interest rate is still good, or better yet, check to see if you can reapply and get an even lower rate. With mortgage rates at the lowest they’ve ever been, you may not only have a better chance of getting that home the second time around, you may also get it at a lower interest rate too.
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