The holiday season is here...and with the holidays comes decorating your homes in St Augustine! The following tips and suggestions will help ensure safety as you get in the holiday spirit.

As I’m sure you heard, President Obama signed legislation to extend and expand the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit. These tax credit changes are included in the Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009, which also extends unemployment benefits to people who have been jobless for more than one year. This will help so many of the people of our community here in St. Augustine.

As a first-time homebuyer, you are are probably curious about how much you can afford before you even talk to a real estate agent or home loan professional. As a general rule of thumb most people who have good credit and a steady income can afford to buy a home that cost 2 and one half to three percent of their annual income.

Fifteen Reasons to Buy Now in Florida

The tax credit is available for first-time home buyers who purchase a home before Dec. 1. You can claim the credit on your 2008 or 2009 tax return, according to the IRS. However, you can't claim the credit until after you've purchased your home. Home buyers who want to claim the credit on their 2008 tax return have these options:

The disclosures RESPA requires lenders and others to give you estimates that make it easier to compare loans and services. Some disclosures outline typical costs and servicing policies, others force settlement participants to disclose affiliations.

As part of the New Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008, Congress made a significant, and little reported, change to the law concerning the exclusion from gross income of capital gain from the sale of a principal residence. This change seemingly was an afterthought, and was slipped into the Act as a revenue offset at the very end of the bill.

Unless the bank has agreed upfront to accept a short sale, which is rare, no one knows for certain -- not the agent working with the buyer, not the listing agent nor the seller -- if a short sale offer will be accepted or rejected by the bank. Simply because a listing is advertised as a short sale does not mean it is a short sale. It means the listing agent and seller hope it will sell as a short sale and the bank will take the offer.

Don’t let common Short Sale Myths land you in foreclosure.  But, what exactly is a Short Sale?  A short sale is defined by Wikipedia “as a sale of real estate in which the sale proceeds fall short of the balance owed on the property's loan”.  A Lender may agree to a short sale by deciding that selling the property at a moderate loss is better than pressing the current owner into foreclosure.  The foreclosure involves hefty fees for the bank and poorer credit report outcomes for the borrower.

Today, 1 out of every 10 homeowners in America is behind on mortgage payments. These are tough and frustrating times and now more than ever, it's important to identify your options. Foreclosure can be avoided, your credit can be saved, and your financial future can be salvaged. Negotiating a Short Sale with your lender has 5 key benefits and be the option for you.