Family and Parenting: Information For Families

Now is the time to hurry, hurry, hurry to your local real estate agent and get in gear to purchase your first home. There has never been a better time than now. There are so many incentives for first time home buyers right now and the deals are coming to a close at the end of the year. We knew it wouldn’t last forever, but it was nice while it lasted.

The most spectacular event that has been seen in recent home-buying-history is the government enforced ‘first-time-home-buyers’ tax credit. This is a flat eight thousand dollar tax credit, which you will receive on your taxes, for purchasing a first home. With the home market kicking down to a slow crawl at the beginning of 2009 there had to be something done; this was a good answer. There is still time to enjoy this incredible discount. It will end in December 2009 which still leaves several months to take advantage.

On top of this amazing tax credit the time to look for amazing deals on homes is now. Due to high volume of foreclosed homes throughout the year it has been extremely easy to find and purchase foreclosed homes. These homes are usually listed in the weekly, local papers, and can be found listed in the annals of the local courthouse.

You must beware of the scams that are revolving around the foreclosure listings. There are several companies that are offering “foreclosure listings” to the public but the only problem is that they are charging the public between 60$ and 300$ for what they call a “complete” list of homes (in your area). This is a scam, a gimmick, and I would ask that anyone looking into the purchase of one of these lists to highly reconsider.

Most of these listing are old, sold, or cold and you are paying for this info. Beware that this information is free to the public from the local government and if you search via your county website and your local papers for the same (or better) information than those you would possibly be spending more than one hundred dollars on. So use common sense when looking into foreclosure listings that sound too good to be true. They cost so much that they can’t even say how much they truly are on radio or television