Local Realtors are gearing themselves up – and warning their clients – about the stretch run for the first-time homebuyer tax credit.

With the credit set to expire on Nov. 30, Realtors are estimating buyers will have to go under agreement by Oct. 1 in order to ensure their deal closes by the deadline. That means buyers should be looking now, and putting in offers on houses soon.

“If you want to find something, and not be rushed, you should probably be in the game by now,” said Paul Campano, senior sales associate at Keller Williams Realtors in Cambridge.

Campano and Joshua Muncey, a buyers’ agent at Charlesgate Realty in Boston, have both noticed that buyers who contact them are serious and focused on getting in before the deadline.

While buyers are feeling a sense of urgency, Realtors are getting the sense they’ll be in for a historic late summer and early fall, welcome after such a sluggish spring.

“From my income standpoint, that [sense of urgency] is attractive because that’s somebody who needs to purchase,” Muncey said. “That whole pool wants to purchase within the next month or so.”

“Would it shock me if November would be an unusually busy month for closing?” Campano asked rhetorically. “It probably will be. November may be a historically active time, because they’re going to try to capitalize on this tax credit.”

Muncey said it was already too late for one part of the market: short sales. Even though it’s still August, banks are unable to process offers fast enough to get deals done by the end of November.

“Short sales are not in play for the tax credit,” he said. “It’s a risk. Maybe, but it’s unlikely.”

Campano said he’d love to see the tax credit expanded, but isn’t holding his breath waiting for Congress to get it done anytime soon.

“I know they have to tackle health care first,” Campano said. “We won’t really know until late October.”