To qualify for the $8,000 federal tax credit, buyers have to secure a “binding” contract by the end of today, and close escrow prior to June 30th. 

Has there been a mad rush over the last week to lock down a contract?  Yes, buyers are looking feverishly, but it doesn’t look like many are buying just because of the tax credit – it still has to be the right house.

Here are the numbers of detached listings that have been marked pending over the first four days of this week, compared to all five days of last week – we’ll check back next week to see how many were marked pending, dated today (or backdated over the weekend):

In the end, both the federal and state tax credit will be bonus money for buyers who happened to be in the right place, at the right time.

There has been a real push to extend escrows that were originally planned to close in April, into May to be eligble for the state tax credit too.  In a couple of weeks we’ll look back and see how the first-week-of-May closings compared to last year, but it’ll be hard to determine how many closed just because of the state tax credit – because in North SD County Coastal the detached sales have been much stronger this year overall:

A 44% increase in North SD County Coastal detached sales, year-over-year!