Arizona Real Estate Notebook

This is looking more and more like the perfect storm (in a good way) for first-time home buyers in Phoenix.

Program ends December 1 (not 31) so you really need to have a home under contract by mid-October at the latest. Earlier is much better. The number of homes listed for sale in the first-time homebuyer price range is falling very rapidly.

For example, we have only a 1.5 months supply of homes priced under $100,000! In my opinion, 4 to 6 months would be “normal” so 1.5 months is a very strong sellers’ market.

Shaun Donovan, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, on Tuesday said that the Federal Housing Administration is going to permit its lenders to allow home buyers to use the $8,000 tax credit as a down payment.

Previously, most buyers wouldn’t receive the funds until after they filed their tax return, and that deterred some people from using the credit. The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® has been calling for the change.

“We all want to enable FHA consumers to access the home buyer tax credit funds when they close on their home loans so that the cash can be used as a down payment,” Donovan says.