You could see it coming as the number of new contracts mounted this summer, but I still said “woah!” when I saw the number of home sales that went to settlement in the Baltimore metro area last month: 2,219, up 36 percent from a year ago.

To put that into perspective, the year-over-year increase in September was just under 10 percent.

It was only last week that the $8,000 credit for first-time home buyers was extended (and expanded), so there were clearly a lot of people who arranged to close on homes last month in order to get the money before it was set to expire Nov. 30.

Full story is available in Baltimore Sun