When Efrain Hernandez couldn’t seal a deal before the first-time home-buyer tax credit expired earlier this year, he lost faith that he would ever own a house in a market where investors and all-cash buyers are snapping up bargains and mortgages seem hard to come by.
But waiting — even though it wasn’t by choice — got him more than the $8,000 federal tax credit.
In a single day last month, Hernandez negotiated a contract on a five-bedroom, three-bath home in a development near Homestead, Fla. By the end of October, he closed, talking home builder Lennar into a $40,000 discount off the list price, getting it to pay $18,000 in closing costs and scoring a $7,500 no-interest loan from Miami-Dade County to lighten his down payment.