The county’s own $10,000
Saying it plainly before anything else: this site is not the county, and it is not connected to Bucks County’s housing office, to Bucks County Housing Group, to HUD, to PHFA, to the VA or to the USDA. The programs below belong to those bodies and are applied for through them. What happens here is that a licensed Pennsylvania lender rings you and works out which of them your file can actually use.
Bucks County’s Department of Housing and Community Development runs a first-time homebuyer program funded by the county and administered through Bucks County Housing Group. It lends up to $10,000 toward the down payment and eligible closing costs at 0% interest, secured by a lien in second position behind your mortgage.
Nothing is due monthly and there is no term. The principal comes back to the county when you sell, transfer title, refinance to take on additional debt, or stop living in the house. Eligible closing costs are spelled out: up to three points, title insurance, the appraisal, the credit report, recording fees and the application fee.
Income has to land at or under 100% of HUD’s median household income for the Philadelphia region, updated each year. The table on the county’s own page is years out of date, so get the current one from BCHG and ignore what is posted.
The $392,000 line, and what it rules out
Here’s the number that decides most of it. The county works to HUD’s HOME homeownership value limit, and the figure it applies in Bucks is $392,000 for a new or an existing house alike. HUD republishes that limit on its own schedule, so ask Bucks County Housing Group which figure is in force the week you go under contract.
Set that beside July 2026 sold medians and the picture is clear. Bristol’s ZIP came in at $408,807, Morrisville at $425,000, Croydon at $359,900, and Warminster at $500,000. The county’s help lands squarely on lower Bucks, the Levitt-era streets, twins, and townhouse and condo purchases. Up in Chalfont at $627,500 or around Langhorne at $667,500, the cap simply doesn’t reach.
None of that makes the up-county towns unbuyable. It moves you to a different tool, which is what the next section is for.
Picked up day and night, calls recorded. No credit pull, no application.
Say what you've saved and roughly where in the county you're looking, and the licensed Pennsylvania lender who calls you back can tell you which of these you fit. One call.
The form takes about a minute and lands in the same place as the call.
What the county asks of you
The underwriting is stricter than the loan sitting in front of it, and buyers find that out late. Debt-to-income runs 33% for housing and 41% overall on total household income. Loan-to-value tops out at 100%, or 103% on a VA loan. Escrow is required. The first mortgage must be fixed rate with a term of at least 15 years, and the only variable-rate exception is a USDA 502 Direct loan.
You have to bring at least one month of principal, interest, taxes and insurance plus 3% of the purchase price from your own funds, though VA borrowers are excused and a First Front Door grant or a lender grant can count toward that 3%. After closing you can hold no more than six months of that payment in assets. A certified home inspection and a state-certified appraisal are both required.
PHFA, and the Bucks numbers
The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency is the other route, and its limits for reservations on or after July 1, 2026 put Bucks in the collar-county region: a $588,800 purchase price cap, with qualifying income of $122,700 for a one or two person household and $141,100 for three or more. That reaches most of the county.
The seconds are where PHFA earns its keep. Keystone Advantage lends the lesser of 4% or $6,000 at 0%, repaid over ten years. K-FIT lends 5% of the price with no dollar cap and forgives 10% of it a year, so after ten years in the house it is gone. K-DATE, new in 2026, lends 8% on loans of $150,000 or less and 5% above that, at 0%, with no payments until you sell, refinance or pay off, out as far as 30 years. All three want a 660 score and no more than $50,000 in liquid assets after closing.
If your income is over the Keystone limits, Keystone Flex drops the first-time rule entirely and runs a $730,600 price cap with qualifying income up to $212,000.
The two percent nobody budgets for
Pennsylvania’s realty transfer tax is 1% and every Bucks municipality adds a local 1%. No borough or township in the county charges more, which is a small mercy. Custom splits the 2% between buyer and seller, so on a $350,000 house your customary half is $3,500, and both sides are jointly liable for the whole amount until it is paid at recording.
Add the owner’s title insurance premium — $2,450 at a $350,000 price under the statewide rate manual — plus $125 for the closing protection letter, the appraisal, and the county’s required home inspection. This is the pile the county’s $10,000 is designed to land on.
Counseling, and why it comes first
Bucks County contracts the required housing counseling to Bucks County Housing Group, and it runs in three parts: a free group webinar, then the Framework online course, then one-on-one counseling. The course fee is reimbursed at settlement when a county loan closes. PHFA asks for a course too on several of its products, and on the Keystone Government loan whenever the score is under 680.
Start it early. Under contract with 30 days to settlement is a bad time to discover a counseling requirement, and everyone who has sat at a Bucks closing table has watched it happen to someone.