End of home-buying tax credit shows in LI data

Month by month, home sale and contract numbers point to the impact of last year’s federal home buyers tax credit, as data from the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island show.

To claim up to $8,000, buyers had to sign contracts by midnight April 30, and when the June 30 closing deadline neared, it was stretched to Sept. 30.

The number of contracts each month last year exceeded those of a year ago until the tax credit’s first deadline passed in April. There were 3,083 contracts signed on Long Island in April, up 72 percent from 1,796 in April 2009.

Then from May on, contracts dropped by as much as 39 percent from a year ago, figures show.
On closings, the first half of the 2010 exceeded the previous year’s activity, but then dropped for the rest of the year.

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