Don’t Wait for November 30th
November 30th will be a very pivotal day in America. This is the date that the $8,000 First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit will expire for the Obama Stimulus Bill in 2009.
Under the current plan, buyers must close (or “settle”) on their home on or before this date in order to be eligible for the $8,000 tax credit. Here are a few problems with waiting around until later November to take action on buying your first property:
- Nov. 30th is a Monday. If you know anything about the business world, it’s that Mondays are typically used for easing into the workweek, and catching up from the weekend of no activity. So, if we just take into account the day of the week, things would promise to be busy no matter what else was going on in the real estate world.
- Nov. 30th is the last day of the month. I know this seems like I’m stating the obvious, but a lot of things happen at the end of the month. Banks want to get their books straight before the next months rolls in. Payroll is getting ready to go out from employers. People are moving out of their leased home and into another property. Bottom line: ends of months are busy times. Combine this with the last day for closing and I bet things will be hectic.
- November 26th is Thanksgiving. That’s right. 4 days before the breaking point of $8,000 or no $8,000 we have a MAJOR American Holiday that usually means a couple things: people take a long weekend Thursday thru Sunday in order to travel and be with family, and very little business is ever done. So if you’re going to wait until the last minute you can almost guarantee that nothing will get done over that weekend, unless the people working for you have no families or take vacations.
As you can see, there are a few very nasty factors that were not taken into account when putting this Tax Credit together. Another thing to be mindful of is that buying a home takes time. It’s not like walking into Best Buy and picking up a copy of Michael Jackson’s Greatest Hits (Vol. 8). Loans can take weeks or months to process. Title Work can take weeks to get done. Files have to be shipped back and forth for signatures, and on top of all that you actually have to search for and find a home that fits your needs.
My point is that if you are a First Time Home Buyer, and an incentive to buying a home in 2009 is the Eight Thousand Dollar Tax Credit, you had better get moving. If you wait until the last minute you may be in jeopardy of losing Eight Grand – plain and simple.
Read my post on How Long it Takes to Buy a Home for more information. If you’re reading this and don’t know what the first steps are, just email me or call and I can point you in the right direction. Just don’t wait and pray that things will work out in the end.
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Great article Steve. I never thought about what day the 30th fell on but it does make sense. If that deadline was not there a lot more short sales would be selleing right now.