WAKE UP RAPID CITY! YOUR DEADLINE for the $8,000 HOME BUYER TAX CREDIT IS NOW AUGUST 3RD, NOT NOVEMBER 30 !

No, it's not November 30. That is the IRS' deadline, not yours. If you have any chance of making it on time, your deadline to start is this Monday, August 3rd. If you are lucky. See the chart...

Right now, please think of people you know, even if you are not interested, do you know of any neighbor, friend, co-worker, or family member considering a home purchase to qualify for the Tax Credit? If so, please do them a favor and make sure they see this post you are reading now.

Here's the details. In order to qualify for the Federal $8,000 First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit, you must Close on (buy) your home by 5:00PM on November 30. But that is the IRS' deadline. Yours is much sooner!

In order for you to be ready by November 30, first about 10 organizations need to complete about 15 crucial tasks on time, in the right sequence, before you have any hope of Closing at all, let alone on time. Add to that, every evaluation of you and your finances, every evaluation of the home, and every comparison with surrounding home values, they all have to come out in favor of your loan being approved, your home being insured, your Title being committed, and a gazillion other conditions.

OK, do I have your attention yet? I dearly hope so! We're seeing a lot of folks walking around thinking this is like back in school when you could start a report the night before you had to turn it in. This is different. It's like coordinating 15 strangers you never met, all working on your paper with you (while some of them are not allowed to talk with you), they owe you no favors, and every one of them has a lot of other folks like you wanting help on their paper, too. Can you still put it off until the night before? NO.

Here's some more harsh reality. A lot of mortgage loans written by your local lender have to go to some national corporate office in Slowdown, Alabama before the loan can be processed and approved. How many millions of people in the U.S. do you think are walking around thinking they'll apply for a loan on November 1 and qualify for the $8,000 by November 30? And we have two title companies in town who handle the majority of Closings. They are often fully booked in normal times. Can you imagine them handling 10, 20 or 30 times as many Closings in that final week? Can you spell "China Syndrome"? "Total Meltdown"?

I predict the big news story nationwide during the week of November 23 will be how unfortunate it is that the horrible buracracy cannot accomodate all the innocent homebuyers who really believed the real deadline was November 30.

If you're real lucky and everything goes just perfect, you may (no one knows for sure) be able to select your home to buy as late as latter September and still meet the deadline. But maybe 2-3% of homebuyers will achive that. Some people who started their home buying process last month will still not make it.

I hope this gives you great concern. Start Monday! This Monday. Not next week. By this Tuesday, you're already in catchup status.

Spread the word. Please. Have your friends come here (www.BlackHillsMarketWatch.com) to get started.
-Lee