The Silicon Valley real estate “Spring Buying Season” has been very active among anxious home buyers, but there’s not a lot of turnkey, well-priced inventory for them to choose among. Yesterday I previewed four homes in San Jose and Santa Clara, and noticed the same young gal doing a drive by while I was touring. Not surprising: there are only a few homes that are on the “need to see” list. And most of them are disappointing (dirty, unkempt houses that were not even properly cleaned up or staged minimally to sell).
The federal government’s tax credits for home buyers expires at the end of April. To qualify for it, move up, move down or first time home buyers must be in contract on a property by April 30th, and must close between May 1st and June 30th. This is a great motivation for many Santa Clara County home buyers – the tax credit can pay for new carpet, curtains, or sprucing up the landscaping on that new purchase.
The good news for residents of the Golden State, though, is that California has created a new $10,000 tax credit. There are plenty of conditions and footnotes, though, the biggest being that it must be a single family home, attached or detached (not an apartment building or investment property). A confusing element of this credit is whether buyers can use all of it, or if the benefit will be capped due to the amount of state taxes paid. To read about it first hand, here’s a link to the California Franchise Board’s statement about the home buyer tax credit. Bookmark that site as the info will be updated periodically.
Here’s the best part: get into contract on a California home in April and close escrow in May, and you may qualify for both of these tax credits!
If that doesn’t get buyers out and looking, nothing will!
So take heart, weary house hunters! Though the federal credit is expiring soon, the state credit is about to kick in, and there are loads of incentives for buying ASAP. If you want to consider getting into the market, you can send me a list of what you’re looking for in a home by completing the form at Silicon Valley Home Hunt, where, and what your budget is and I can send you the matching list of homes for sale in San Jose, Los Gatos, Saratoga, or anywhere in Silicon Valley. (The site says it’s automatic, and it is, but I have to do the initial setup so please allow time for me to do that – usually I set it up within a couple of hours. After that, it’s 100% automatic.)
Additionally, I have a page set up as a Los Gatos home buyer’s kit with links to tons of information, including pages you can browse Los Gatos homes for sale. No forms to fill out – just loads of information and links to posts I’ve written about Los Gatos neighborhoods, for instance.
