Looking at the May 2010 numbers for the Lancaster PA Real Estate Market, one thing is very obvious at least: a WHOLE lot of homebuyers got pushed into April for their 2010 home purchase – and for good reason.  The Federal $8,000 first-time homebuyer incentive expired on April 30th of this year, and many prospective purchasers moved up their timetable to take advantage of a check from our government.

Now, in the markets hardest hit around the country this incentive was no doubt a boon for everyone involved, and surely made a dent in some of the bad sales figures.  However, I’ve heard from real estate pros in other markets that weren’t experiencing a double-digit slump (of which Lancaster County is one) and the feedback has been generally “now what?”.  Every year the sales per month follows a predictable curve and the relative sales in a given month to prior years is a decent indicator of the strength of the current market.  Well, here is the last few year’s “pending homes” by month, which will give you an idea of how the tax credit has affected our Lancaster PA real estate market:

Well, it may not be a “massive sales crash” but I can’t help but wonder how many months it will take for new sales to catch up to the traditional cycle.  I heard of people who were planning to buy in August or later who instead moved up to April.  so who will be left for August?

Prediction: If it was a buyer’s market before, it will be even more a buyer’s market this late summer & fall.

BTW, if you haven’t heard, congress has extended the settlement date for those April tax credit sales to September 30th.