If you have already completed your taxes, paid all your bills or waiting for your refund check, now is the right time to revisit the expanded and extended real estate tax benefit. Why now? Because now, while you are calculating the tax bill on your refund, you can now finally see just how beneficial tax credit of $8,000 can be in real terms.

So here is the basics, those qualified first-time buyers of new homes for 2009 and 2010 can get up to 10% of the purchase price of the home, equivalent to a maximum of $8,000. In November of 2009, the legislation extended the tax credit to up to $6,500 or up to ten per cent of the purchase price of the home to those residents for a long time of the same primary residence if they purchased new main home. To qualify for this, taxpayers who are eligible must present an evidence that they have lived in their previous homes for five consecutive years during the eight-year ending on the closing date of their new home. You don't have to pay back just as long as you stayed in your qualified home for 36 months at least. If you are qualified for the credit, you can still apply for this to taxes of this year though you have already filed your returns.