When you're negotiating the purchase of a home, there may be a tendency to focus on the price and price alone. But the fact is, there are several other factors that can -and should-be negotiated.

Move-in time

Depending on your rush as a buyer and the seller's desire to stay in the property a bit longer (as in the case of a pre-foreclosure), you may allow the seller to remain in the property a bit longer in exchange for a small reduction of the price.

Appliances

It's March, and as spring fills the air, realtors everywhere breathe a sigh of relief and prepare for a more hopeful market. Spring brings out both buyers and sellers, and the increased activity also tends to bring a little bouyancy to home prices. But while pundits everywhere herald the end of the real-estate crisis, some U.S. markets are wrestling with seriously grim foreclosure numbers. 

For the savvy foreclosure investor, these markets represent a heavy concentration of great deals, highly motivated sellers and terrific profit opportunity.

I know what you're thinking. November 30th is coming at us faster than a Mac truck, and you're wondering if you'll have time to close on a house before the First-Time Homebuyer Federal Tax Credit expires.

Like the cash-for-clunkers program that swept the nation earlier this year, the Federal Tax Credit has generated a flurry of sales activity as homebuyers hurry to benefit from the up to $8,000 incentive.

And now we're only a couple of months away from the end. Or are we?

Long-term rates are rising today, the all-important 10-year Treasury suddenly above the 3.16-3.28 percent range that gave us sub-5 percent mortgages for the first time since spring. Gone now, pushing 5.125 percent, the 10-year trading 3.37 percent at this moment.

Ordinarily, a range breakout like this would signal a run to the top of the old range, 10-year Treasurys testing 4 percent as in summer, mortgages at 5.75 percent. However, nothing in this moment is ordinary -- not remotely predictable with normal tools.

Believers in "V"-shaped recovery gave it up this week, as did many hoping for any near-term recovery at all. The 10-year T-note broke cleanly through its post-May 3.28 percent low, taking mortgages below 5 percent, also for the first time since spring.

The manner in which the bond market cascaded said more than the fact. There was no new, single-piece, trend-changing report, just the cumulative weight of news describing an end to the May-July bright interval, and the beginning of an economic flattening or outright stall sometime in August.