Congress sweetened the deal for house-hunters on Thursday, extending the deadline beyond Nov. 30 for first-time homebuyers to collect up to $8,000 and beefing up the tax credit pool to include a $6,500 credit for owners of existing homes who are buying a new home.

That incentive is kicking in at an opportune time in the Coachella Valley, real estate professionals said Thursday.

This is the beginning of the buying season.

With the inventory of existing Multiple Listing Service homes for sale in the Coachella Valley at the lowest it's been since December 2005, Greg Berkemer, executive vice president of the California Desert Association of Realtors, said he expects sales activity will be brisk and competitive.

Sales of existing homes and condos on the Multiple Listing Service rose by 1.2 percent in September over the same month last year, Berkemer said, as the 5,630 homes in the MLS inventory that month was 27 percent lower than September 2008, when there were 7,740 listings on the market.

The median price of desert real estate on the Multiple Listing Service was $159,810 in September, down 20 percent from $199,810 in September 2008.

“The desert median price for a single-family home is now below the national median — $174,900 — for the first time in several years, when including sales in the high-desert areas,” Berkemer said, discussing homes that are typically on the market for 51 days.

Becky Bowles, president of the Palm Springs Regional Association of Realtors, said it was fabulous that Congress extended the credit opportunities.

“The credit makes a big difference to first-time homebuyers with limited funds available,'' she said, citing a recent survey from the California Association of Realtors that said 39 percent of those buyers would not be in a home in 2009 if the credit did not exist.

“I think it'll make a big difference in the people who are sitting on the fence,'' she said. “Everyone has figured out that we've reached a bottom, and there are incredible opportunities for buyers.

“They've never seen these low prices at these low interest rates, and these credits will go a long way to give them the encouragement they need to move forward.”

Patrick Veling, president and founder of Brea-based Real Data Strategies, said the action by Congress holds potential to improve the lot of sellers trying to sell their mid-priced homes.

“These buyers of homes may now be more motivated to free up the equity they have in their homes and migrate up to the mid-level priced homes,'' Veling said.

The primary upside is, it bodes well for the mid-range market, Veling said.

On the other hand, Veling said one could argue that the overall economic strategy of artificially boosting the demand primarily through government insertion into the process is delaying the natural bottoming of the market.

“Time will tell,'' he said.

Berkemer said the housing market collapsed from the bottom, not the top.

“If we're going to fix it, we have to fix it from the bottom,'' he said. “That's why this is so vital. This new tax credit piece that allows for move-up buying, and frees up their home for other first-time buyers, will be how the market will repair itself.”