Naperville – tax credit time running out

Window closing on Federal Income Tax credit

According to current regulations, eligible homeowners who want to take advantage of the up to $8,000 federal tax credit must close their transactions by November 30, 2009. That is about 70 days from now. Or is it……..?

Let’s recognize a few realities in looking at this. First, it is going to take 45 to 60 days in today’s environment to get from contract through loan approval to closing. Second, November 30 is a Monday, after the Thanksgiving weekend – (Think there will be a glut of closings scheduled for that day?) so we can back up the target date to, at the latest, November 25, dropping the holiday and extended weekend. But really, how productive is Thanksgiving week really? So where does that take us?

I am advising my clients that they should be targeting a close date no later than Friday November 20, 2009 if they have a realistic expectation of closing in time to take advantage of the credit. With a 60 day process window from contract to close – decisions need to be made by the end of Labor Day week 2009! If you are active in the buying cycle now, make sure you plan properly. If you need assistance, contact your agent or contact me.

(thanks to Tim McDonald and Dan Green for their discussions on this topic at RE BarCamp)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 at 11:10 am and is filed under Buyers Information, Government Housing Programs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1. Tim McDonald said at August 26th, 2009 at 3:32 pm

   Tony,
   I really don’t think most buyers realize how little time is left to take advantage of the tax credit.
   Thanks for spreading the word!

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