First-time buyers purchased 46% of existing home sales in May, down from 49% in April.

We all knew that first-time home buyers activity was going to fade after the tax credit expired. But there was not much of a way to quantify exactly what the impact would be beforehand. We could wait for subsequent monthly sales data to reflect that weakness — but that is hardly much of a solution.

Enter the Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance Monthly Survey of Real Estate Market Conditions, a proprietary survey of 1,500 real estate agents nationwide.

The results of the first survey are out, and not surprisingly, it indicates that first-time “homebuyer traffic dropped sharply in May. This drop implies fewer signed contracts in June and fewer closed transactions in July and August.”

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Given its fiscal condition, one wouldn’t imagine California could afford its own own first-time home buyers tax break, but somehow, they came up with one. California enacted its own $10,000 credit on May 1 — the day after the federal tax credit expired.

Not surprisingly, Cali fared better than the rest country in terms of first-time home buyer activity. As the chart below shows, California’s first-time homebuyer traffic did much better than the rest of the nation:

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Sources:

First-Time Homebuyer Traffic Took Nose-Dive in May

Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance Survey, June 21, 2010

http://campbellsurveys.com/housingreport/press_062110.htm

Home buyer Traffic Tumbled in May as First-Time Shopping Stalled (PDF)