Hello everyone and welcome back to Money Girls Quick and Dirty Tips for Ritchie Life.

I'm your host Laura Adams. The topic of this episode is how to save money by

claiming the new and improved tax credit.

You may have heard about the first time home buyer credit, that's the $8,000 tax incentive that was created

earlier this year to stimulate the U.S. economy by enticing some people to buy or build a home. It's part of the American Recovery

and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The rule was that you had to close on a home before December 1st of 2009 and that neither you nor your spouse

could have owned a home within the prior three years.

But the rules have now changed for the better.

The new legislation is part of the worker, home ownership, and business

assistance act of 2009 which was signed into law on November 6th. It expands

eligibility for the homebuyer credit to those who already own a home and

extends the deadline to qualify. Here are three major changes to the law.

Number one, there are now two deadlines to meet. The first is when you have to enter into a binding

purchase contract for a primary residence. That deadline is on or before April 30th of

2010. The second deadline is when you have to complete the legal closing, that's by midnight on June 30th of 2010.

So now you have five additional months to get a home under contract

and two more months to secure financing and do everything to get a deal closed.

Number two, the second major new rule is what many people were hoping for,

that current homeowners could also take advantage of the credit.

The catch is that a new home must be a

replacement for your primary residence, not a second home or a rental property. You also

must have lived in your current home for five consecutive years during the eight years that

...