What PHFA is, and who you actually talk to
The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency writes the programs and funds them. It does not take your application. A participating lender does that, reserves the money with PHFA under your name, and the assistance turns up at settlement as a second mortgage on the house.
Every limit below applies to reservations made on or after July 1, 2026, from PHFA’s own Appendix A. Pages still quoting a $659,000 Keystone Flex price cap or a $196,200 Flex income are a year out of date, and there are plenty of those.
The Bucks County numbers
Keystone Home Loan is the first mortgage. Bucks sits in PHFA’s Region 1 along with Chester, Delaware and Montgomery, and they all share one set of limits.
| Keystone Home Loan, Bucks County | Limit |
|---|---|
| Maximum purchase price | $588,800 |
| Income, one- or two-person household | $122,700 |
| Income, three or more people | $141,100 |
(PHFA Appendix A, effective July 1, 2026.) A duplex can go 10% above the price cap. The conventional version, insured through PHFA’s own fund, needs a 660 credit score; the same Keystone loan can also be written as FHA at 3.5% down, or as VA or USDA with nothing down.
Keystone Home Loan is for first-time buyers, which means nobody on the loan has owned a principal residence in the past three years. That rule is waived for a discharged veteran and inside targeted areas, and whether a particular Bucks address falls in a targeted census tract is something the lender looks up before you rule yourself in or out.
Picked up day and night, calls recorded. No credit pull, no application.
Three answers get this moving: the town, the price range and roughly what the household earns. A licensed Pennsylvania lender who does PHFA loans in Bucks calls you back with which second fits. Give us a ring.
The form takes about a minute and lands in the same place as the call.
K-FIT, and how the forgiveness clock runs
K-FIT is the one people call about. It’s 5% of the lesser of the purchase price or the appraised value, with no dollar cap, at 0%, with no monthly payment. Ten percent of the balance is forgiven each year for ten years, and at year ten the lien comes off the title.
Put a $400,000 house in Warminster behind that and K-FIT is $20,000. FHA’s 3.5% down payment on that price is $14,000, so the second covers the down payment and leaves $6,000 for closing costs. Each year another $2,000 of it is forgiven.
The calendar is the part to think about. Sell or refinance in year four and 40% has been forgiven, while the other 60% is settled at that closing. K-FIT needs a 660 score, caps your liquid assets at $50,000 after closing, and has a $500 minimum.
The other two seconds
| Second mortgage | Amount | How it’s repaid |
|---|---|---|
| Keystone Advantage | Lesser of 4% of the price or $6,000 | 0%, monthly over 10 years |
| K-DATE, new in 2026 | 8% on a first mortgage of $150,000 or less, 5% above that | 0%, no payments, due on sale, refinance or payoff, deferred up to 30 years |
Keystone Advantage goes to $8,000 for employees of a company on PHFA’s Employer Assisted Housing list. That list is dated January 13, 2020 and names no Bucks-based employer, so ask about it anyway before you write it off.
Which second you can have depends on the first mortgage. K-FIT pairs with Keystone Home Loan and Keystone Flex. Keystone Advantage pairs with Keystone Home, Keystone Government and HFA Preferred. K-DATE requires homebuyer counseling. The lender knows the pairings cold.
Keystone Flex, if you’ve owned recently
Owned a principal residence inside the last three years? Keystone Flex has no first-time requirement. From July 1, 2026 it allows a $730,600 purchase price in every Pennsylvania county and a qualifying income of $212,000 (PHFA Appendix F, July 2026), and it pairs with K-FIT or K-DATE.
Those ceilings sit well above where most of the county trades. Warminster’s median sold price in July 2026 was $500,000 and Quakertown’s was $550,000 (Movoto market trends, read August 25, 2026), so on a Flex loan the price cap is rarely the thing that stops you.
Keystone Government wraps an FHA, VA or USDA first mortgage with no PHFA income or price limits at all, though the federal rules for those loans still apply. Anyone under a 680 score completes a homebuyer course.
The counseling, and how to only sit through it once
PHFA asks for counseling on K-DATE and a homebuyer course on Keystone Government under a 680 score. Bucks County’s own program has its own requirement, run by Bucks County Housing Group: a free group webinar, then the Framework online course, then a one-on-one session. The course fee comes back at settlement when the county loan closes.
Nobody tells you this the first time, so here it is: ask the lender and the counselor whether one course satisfies both before you sign up for two of them.
Stacking with the county’s $10,000
Bucks County lends first-time buyers up to $10,000 at 0%, deferred until you sell, transfer the house, refinance for additional debt, or stop living there. Under the 2026 criteria, revised June 1, 2025, the county will accept second lien position and prefers first. PHFA’s second wants a spot in that same line, so whether both fit on one house is a lender question, asked before you build a budget on the pair.
Two county rules matter while you’re deciding. The county caps the purchase price at $392,000 under the HOME value limit, which is well under PHFA’s $588,800, and it wants at least 3% of the price in your own funds plus a month of PITI. The county program guide has the income and residency rules.