For Craig Beggins, owner of Apollo Beach-based Beggins Enterprises, this week's surge in home sales has been like a return to the "good days" of the housing boom.

Spurred by today's deadline to have a home purchase under contract to qualify for a first-time home buyer's tax credit, Beggins anticipates getting 160 to 170 houses under contract this month. That's on par with the real estate company's sales volume back in 2005, though home prices are still languishing at half of what they were.

"There's absolutely a rush. It's amazing," Beggins said.

Across the country, some real estate agents have been working seven days a week and builders are staying open late to get contracts in hand. Nearly 1.8 million households had applied for the credit as of mid February at a cost of $12.6 billion, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

Congress included the temporary tax credit in the $787 billion stimulus package signed into law a month after President Barack Obama took office last year. Lawmakers, after intense lobbying from the real estate industry, agreed last fall to extend it until April 30. Ever since, Realtors have been using the deadline as a lure to turn home browsers into buyers.

A digital clock on the home page of the Florida Realtors was ticking Thursday. One day, eight hours, 32 minutes, 23 seconds … One day, eight hours, 32 minutes, 22 seconds …

Skeptics say that the incentives are an attempt to manipulate market forces and that they are leaving housing vulnerable to a dangerous double dip. And many economists say the main effect of the first-time buyer tax credit was to bring would-be homeowners into the market sooner.

"Most of the benefits went to people who would have bought a home anyway," said Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight. He estimates that the tax credits will spark only 350,000 to 450,000 additional sales nationwide for 2009 and 2010 combined.

Nancy Riley, a broker with Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate in St. Petersburg, said she has seen activity pick up recently. But she credits it not to the pending tax credit deadline, but rather to a general feeling that home prices are bottoming out.

Some of the interest, she said, is from investors who believe they can get a stronger return on snapping up depressed real estate than from money market accounts.

"A lot of cash is out there looking to purchase something," Riley said. "I'm working twice as hard for half the money, but I'm making money, so I'm not complaining."

Information from Times wires was used in this report. Jeff Harrington can be reached at jharrington@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8242.