First-time home buyers scrambled to get contracts signed and deals in the pipeline last month, driving up pending home sales 16 percent in the Buffalo-Niagara area, even as closed sales activity fell in both numbers and especially dollars.

Completed home sales in Erie and Niagara counties fell 4 percent in September to 926 from 963 a year ago, according to newly released statistics from the Buffalo Niagara Association of Realtors. That’s the lowest tally for September since 2005.

Even more significantly, the figure was down almost 22 percent from 1,184 in August, after a hot and heavy summer of sales.

The drop in closed sales appears to be linked to the added difficulty that some home buyers are having in completing the financing, said John Leonardi, executive vice president and CEO of the Realtors group. That’s because banks have tightened credit, and many smaller brokers and lenders have left the mortgage business.

But pending sales, those expected to close in the next couple of months, soared to 857, the highest total for the month in three years, from 738 a year ago. They were even up 5.4 percent from 813 in August.

The figures show that area residents, like people elsewhere, were rushing to get in on the $8,000 federal first-time home-buyer tax credit before it expires.

To qualify, a home must be purchased — that is, closed — by the end of November. Given the lag time needed for various stages of the process, that means contracts had to be signed by the end of September.

“Everybody’s trying to push these deals through because they have to close by Nov. 30,” Leonardi said. “So this time next month will be the true sign of what’s going on.”

Real estate agents were doing everything possible to get the word out to prospective customers over the summer. The Realtors group even invested “a significant amount of money” in radio, TV and Internet advertising, Leonardi said.

Now, the push is on by the Realtor community to spur Congress and the Obama administration to renew the credit, or even expand it to all home buyers. Agents say the tax credit did its job in fueling a resurgence in the housing market, but now it is needed to keep the momentum going. Leonardi said a home sale leads to $12,000 to $15,000 in new investment locally.

“It helps the community,” he said, citing an employee of the Realtors group who used the credit to buy a new air conditioner, heater and windows for her home. “That is a perfect example of [why] the federal government needs to give serious consideration to expanding and extending the tax credit.”

The homes that were sold in September also appeared to be lower in cost, as the average price for closed sales fell 6 percent from a year ago and 3.7 percent from August, to $127,245. However, that is still the third-highest price for the month in more than a decade.

Additionally, the total dollar value of all the closed transactions plummetted 35 percent to $87.8 million from $135.3 million a year ago and was down by nearly half from $162.1 million in August. That’s the lowest dollar total since $86 million in April and the lowest total for the month of September since the 2001 recession.

On the other hand, the median home price rose 4 percent to $114,900 from a year ago to the highest level for the month of September in at least a decade, though it was down by $100 from $115,000 in August. Median means half sold for more and half for less.

The inventory of homes available for purchase also fell, with active listings down 13 percent to 5,367, while new listings fell 2 percent from a year ago and 12 percent from August, to 1,538 — the fewest homes to be freshly marketed since last winter.

“We’re excited. This is the best time to buy,” Leonardi said. “If people think in our marketplace that home values are going to drop, that’s not our market. We have been very consistent across the board.”