Saline Real Estate and Homes for Sale

Tick Tock.  The clock is ticking for first-time Saline home buyers or Saline condo buyers to take advantage of the $8000 First Time Buyer Tax Credit.  (Original article written by Vance Shutes).  Let's take a more detailed look at that situation today.

First, let's review the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit program, which was passed as part of the 2009 economic stimulus plan.  The program credits up to $8,000 in tax payments to qualified buyers.

The qualification criteria are as follows:

• You may not have owned a "primary home" in the past 36 months.
• The home may not be purchased from a parent, spouse, or child.
• Adjusted gross income for the household must be below $95,000 for single tax filers and $170,000 for joint tax filers.

Furthermore, not everyone who is qualified will get the full $8,000. The credit can't exceed 10 percent of the purchase price, for example, and households with income approaching program limits get lesser benefits, too.

Meanwhile, an interesting note about the First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit is that it's a true tax credit and not a deduction.  A person or couple claiming the $8,000 credit whose "normal" tax liability is $5,000 would get back $5,000 or whatever had been withheld for federal income taxes plus an additional $3,000.  (You can review the program's criteria here.)

In order to have your purchase closed by November 30, 2009, let's construct a back-track timetable from the closing date:

November 30:  the absolute last day when your purchase MUST be closed.  That closing must include the title transfer, your mortgage funded & all bank (think "mortgage") wire receipts received by the title company.  If you are a gambler, you can wait to close on November 30, but it also means that absolutely NOTHING can go wrong!  How likely is that?

November 26-27 (Thanksgiving day + Friday).  Title companies are closed for the holiday.

November 23-25 (Monday - Wednesday):  A much safer option for the closing date for the purchase of your Saline home or Saline condo.  These should be your target dates for closing, and will be the closing dates which I'll use in the rest of this article.

November 16 (Monday):  Under new rules in effect now, your mortgage lender must submit the final closing costs for your review 7 days in advance of your closing date.  This means that your mortgage lender must have final underwriting approval and all HUD forms completed on the previous Friday, November 13 (oooh, THAT date!)

October 16 (Friday):  Your mortgage lender would like to have 30 days before the closing date to receive a completed appraisal of the Saline home or Saline condo which you'd like to purchase.  Your mortgage cannot be underwritten until the completed appraisal is received.  It's likely that both appraisers and underwriters will be VERY busy with all of the last-minute closings before that November 30 deadline, so it's possible that the 30 days won't be enough time.

October 9 (Friday):  These days, we typically include a 7-day contingency for buyers to complete their inspections of the property.  You'll want to know that the property has passed all inspections before your mortgage lender orders an appraisal of the property.  You'll want to have completed your inspections by this coming Friday, October 9.

October 5 (Today):  You'll want to have an accepted offer on your purchase of a Saline home or a Saline condo this week!  Don't delay!

The clock is ticking.  Tick Tock.

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If you have questions about your specific situation, or if you're considering buying or selling any Saline real estate, you owe it to yourself to take advantage of my experience in the Saline market.  I'd be happy to meet with you!  Just give me a call at (734) 476-2063, or send an e-mail, "Vance (at) SalineMichiganRealEstate (dot) com".

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