There’s just 30 days remaining to use the federal home buyer tax credit.

The credit ranges up to $8,000 for first-time homebuyers, and up to $6,500 for existing homeworkers who have lived in their main home for 5 of the last 8 years.

Claiming the federal tax credit is a two-step process. First, you must be under contract for a new home on or before April 30, 2010.  Then, you must close on said home on or before June 30, 2010. 

There are no exceptions on the dates (except for certain members of the military).

Timeline aside, homebuyers and the subject property must also meet minimum requirements in order to be tax credit-eligible:

• You can’t purchase the home from a parent, spouse, or child
• You can’t purchase the home from an entity in which the seller is a majority owner
• You can’t acquire the home by gift or inheritance
• Each buyer in the purchase must meet eligibility requirements
• The home sale price may not exceed $800,000
• Buyers may not earn more than $125,000 as single-filers; $225,000 as joint-filers

The complete eligibility checklist is published on the IRS website.  Or, if you find IRS-speak too difficult, make a phone call to your accountant.  Asking a tax professional’s advice on a tax-related matter is never a time-waster.

And lastly, don’t forget that if you’re claiming to federal tax credit for home buyers, it’s a tax credit and not a deduction.  This means that a tax filer who qualifies for the full $8,000 and for whom the “normal” federal tax liability is $8,000, will owe no federal taxes in 2010 to the IRS.

If you’re an active buyer in San Francisco, or anywhere else in the country , mark your calendar for April 30, 2010. It’s 30 days from now and, as the date gets closer, buyer traffic will increase. The likely result is higher home prices and more difficult negotiations.  The best time to act may be today.

The economy’s improving but lending standards are not. Nationally, banks are making mortgage approvals harder to come by.

Underwriting guidelines are tightening.

The data comes from the Federal Reserve’s quarterly survey to its member banks.  The Fed asks senior bank loan officers around the country to report on “prime” residential mortgage guidelines over the most recent 3 months and whether they’ve tightened.

For the period October-December 2009:

• Roughly 1 in 4 banks said guidelines tightened
• Roughly 3 in 4 banks said guidelines were “basically unchanged”

Just 2 of 53 banks said its guidelines had loosened.

Combine the Fed’s survey with recent underwriting updates from the FHA and generally tougher standards for conventional loans and it’s clear that lenders are much more cautious about their loans than they were, say, in 2007.

Today’s Santa Rosa home buyers and would-be refinancers face a bevy of new borrowing hurdles including:

• Higher minimum FICO scores
• Larger downpayment requirements for purchases
• Larger equity positions for refinances
• Lower debt-to-income ratios

So, if you’re on the fence about whether now is a good time to buy a home, or make that refi, consider acting sooner rather than later.  It doesn’t necessarily matter that mortgage rates are low, or that there’s an up-to-$8,000 home purchase tax credit for households that qualify.  With each passing quarter, fewer and fewer applicants are eligible to take advantage.