Good news!   The House and Senate have approved the extension of the Homebuyer Assistance Program to September 30, 2010, for those people who have had a home under contract by April 30, 2010. 

There were about 180,000 buyers who had a home under contract by April 30, 2010, who were not able to get the banks holding the short sale loan to respond to them in time to get the sale closed by June 30, 2010.  This approved legislation will give them a few more months to work through the long, complicated short sale process and get to closing by September 30, 2010. 

However, my experience with real estate sales in the Boise, Idaho, area has been that for some people this extension will still not give them enough time.  We have seen some short sales take over a year.  Some banks are slow to respond because their systems may be poor, agents who are not experienced with the complex short-sale process may not be navigating the process properly, or the banks are overwhelmed because they do not have an adequate number of staff to do the work.

The good news is, though, that most of these buyers should be able to get their home purchases closed by September 30th.  Let's hope for the best.