Yesterday the United States Senate voted to extend the deadline until September 30 to close on a home for which the buyer is eligible for the tax credits that recently expired.  Though the houses had to be under contract by April 30, the deadline to close is currently June 30.  However, there are many buyers who are in jeopardy of not closing on time.  First, home builders are racing to complete as many homes as they can, but they won't finish them all.  Second, mortgage delays may cause up to 180,000 buyers to miss the deadline.  A key reason for these delays result from the tightened requirements which has slowed down the processing of mortgages. 

If the House passes a similar bill and the president signs it, it would qualify only for those who are currently under contract - it does not do anything to reopen the tax credit to those who missed the April 30 deadline.

The market in Austin slowed quite a bit in May following the expiration of the tax credit (the number of contracts accepted in Austin in May was off 50.4% from April).  The first fifteen days of May have shown improvement, though as the 837 contracts were accepted throughout the MLS area as compared to 627 in the first fifteen days of May.

Even though the tax credit is gone, the interest rates are unexpectedly low because of the European crisis.  This is like have a price cut on every home in the MLS.  For more information on this, read one of my earlier articles.

If you are ready to buy a house in the Austin, Texas area, contact me via email, online form, or at 512-735-7200.