Home Buyer Tax Credit Extension All But Dead!

The home buyer tax credit extension bill appears to have failed.

The grab-bag bill many home buyers have been on tenterhooks about -- because it had an amendment extending the closing deadline for the $8,000 federal tax credit -- is officially dead.

Supporters in the Senate have given up trying to pass the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act, so the deadline to settle on a tax-credit deals remains June 30. The Senate had approved an amendment to the bill that would had tacked on an extra three months for the estimated 100,000-plus buyers who are still waiting for paperwork to go through.

Lucien Salvant, a spokesman for the National Association of Realtors, said the measure might still come to be through another bill. But with just a few days left, "it's coming right down to the wire."

"The anxiety level among home buyers who have to wait to close ... is very high," he said.

If Congress decides to pass an extension in, say, July and make it retroactive, some of these deals might have already fallen apart in the meantime, Salvant noted.