The real-estate lobby wants Congress to extend the amount of time that potential home buyers have to complete transactions that qualify for the $8,000 federal home-buyer tax credit.

To qualify for the tax credit, buyers had to sign purchase agreements by April 30.  Those buyers have until the end of June to close on those sales, and anything that closes after that wouldn’t get the tax credit.

The problem, says the National Association of Realtors, is that many of those signed contracts are on foreclosures and short sales, where the lender allows the house to sell for less than the amount owed to the bank. Those transactions take longer than normal to process, and there’s some concern that many sales may not actually close in time.