What it costs in Pennsylvania
The best news first. Pennsylvania’s 1% realty transfer tax and the local 1% that every Bucks municipality adds both apply to a deed, and a mortgage is not a taxable document. So a refinance owes no transfer tax at all, and Pennsylvania levies no mortgage tax of its own. You pay recording fees and the lender’s costs.
Title insurance is the other line. Pennsylvania regulates title rates statewide, and the refinance schedule starts at $512 and climbs with the loan amount. There is also a reissue discount when you already hold a policy from a recent purchase or refinance — dig the old policy out of the settlement folder and hand it to the title company, because they will not go looking for it and it is worth real money.
Check the county lien before you apply
Here’s the one that catches Bucks owners. If you bought with the county’s first-time buyer program, there is a $10,000 lien behind your mortgage at 0%, and its terms say the principal comes due in full on sale, transfer of title, a refinance that takes on additional debt, or the day the house stops being your principal residence.
A rate-and-term refinance is not necessarily fatal to it. The county’s guidelines allow subordination where the new first mortgage improves the terms of the old one, which is exactly what a rate-and-term refinance is meant to do. But the request goes to the county’s housing office, and it has to be made and granted, never assumed. Make that call before the appraisal is ordered.
The same caution applies to a PHFA second. Keystone Advantage is repaid over ten years, and K-FIT forgives 10% of its balance each year over ten years. Ask PHFA’s servicer in writing what your refinance does to that schedule before you commit to it.
Picked up day and night, calls recorded. No credit pull, no application.
Start with what you owe, what the house would appraise at and which loan you're in now. A licensed Pennsylvania lender calls you back with the arithmetic. One phone call.
The form takes about a minute and lands in the same place as the call.
The seasoning rules
Every government program makes you wait, and the waits are specific.
| Loan | Minimum wait | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| FHA Streamline | 210 days plus 6 payments | Net tangible benefit required, cash back capped at $500, usually no appraisal |
| VA IRRRL | 210 days plus 6 payments | 0.5% funding fee, usually no appraisal |
| FHA cash-out | 12 months | Maximum 80% of value |
| Conventional rate-and-term | None set by the agencies | Individual lenders may impose one |
The streamline products exist to be cheap and quick. Skipping the appraisal is the reason, and it also means a house that has lost value can still be refinanced, which matters to anyone who bought at the top of a run.
How high you can go
Rate-and-term limits are set by the loan type. Conventional goes to 97% of value on a one-unit property and 95% on a two to four unit. FHA goes to 97.75%. A VA IRRRL is not driven by a loan-to-value calculation in the usual way, which is one of its quiet advantages.
For 2026 the conforming ceiling in Bucks is $832,750 on one unit and the published FHA ceiling is $630,200, a figure the lender confirms, and those apply to a refinance the same way they apply to a purchase. A balance above the conforming line means a jumbo refinance and a different set of reserve requirements.
Getting out of mortgage insurance
For a Bucks owner who bought with 3.5% down on an FHA loan, the annual premium runs for the life of the loan. The exit is a refinance into a conventional loan once there is enough equity, at which point private mortgage insurance can be cancelled on request at 80% of the original value and must come off automatically at 78%.
With the county median up 7.5% in the year to July 2026, some owners have that equity sooner than the amortization schedule implies. An appraisal settles it. Whether the whole move is worth doing depends on the pricing on the day, so ask the lender to run it both ways before you decide.
It will not touch your assessment
People ask this every time, so: no, a refinance appraisal does not change your Bucks County tax assessment. The county’s assessments date from 1972 and the state’s common level ratio factor for the year running from July 1, 2026 is 17.86, which is how the county translates old assessments into current values for transfer tax purposes. Your assessment changes only through the Board of Assessment, and the appeal deadline is August 3 for the following tax year, at $75 per parcel.
While you’re in the paperwork, check that your homestead exclusion is on the bill. It comes off the school portion, it is applied for once through the county, and the deadline is March 1 for the year that begins the following July 1.