The “move up” or “repeat” buyer guidelines according to the National Association of Home Builders website states that you must have lived in your present home for 5 of the last 8 years. Doesn’t say you have to sell your existing home, but that you must be purchasing another home. This is $6500 free, given to you to buy that bigger home you’ve been wanting, that home with the pool, or fourth bedroom, or in another area of town.

You don’t have to be purchasing a home that costs more or is bigger than your existing home. In fact, if you’ve been wanting to downsize, get into a single story town home and out of the large one you raised your children in, there’s $6500 incentive to do so.

Monetary guidelines do apply. If you are single, your adjusted income can be no more than $125,000 or if you are a couple, no more than $225,000. The actual tax credit is for 10 percent of the purchase price to a maximum of $6500 and the home has to be purchased for less than $800,000. That figure would work for most of us here in the Tallahassee area.

Then there is the time factor. The contract must be written by April 30, 2010 with closing by June 30, 2010 and you have to be moving into the home. It cannot be investment property.

As for those first time homebuyers who thought they missed the November 30 deadline, you too have been given another chance to buy that home. Don’t put it off until the last minute this time. Get your financial information together, talk with a lender and learn what they will loan you and what you are comfortable paying and get to looking now for that place to call your own.

If you are working with a Realtor, ask them to place you on automatic notifications by email of properties that meet your criteria of area of town, price, bedrooms and baths and start perusing on line what’s actually available. No longer do you have to search through internet sites where you are unsure of the actual price of the house or if it’s even available. Our Tallahassee Board of Realtors Multiple Listing System allows Realtors to provide you on line, real time properties available in our area.

The same guidelines for the $8000 first time home buyer tax credit apply as the $6500 tax credit. The contract must be written and agree upon by April 30 with closing by June 30. Income and home price guidelines are the same also.

Timing is everything. With interest rates still low and tax credit incentives like these, there may truly never be a better time to buy a home. Don’t let this time slip by. If you’re wanting to sell, make that New Year’s resolution to get your home in shape to sell quickly and if you’ve been thinking of buying your first home, just do it, before the deadline ends.

For additional information about either of these tax credits, visit