What Texas first-time buyer programs actually require
Four gates decide most Texas assistance, and the one everybody worries about is the one several programs do not have. What the three-year rule really says, where the credit floor sits, and why the largest state program carries no first-time-buyer requirement at all.
What are the actual requirements for Texas assistance?
Four gates, and they are applied in a particular order. The property has to be eligible, which on most programmes means a location and a price cap. The household has to be under an income limit, which is set by county and is higher than almost anyone expects. There is usually a credit floor. And there is generally a homebuyer education course, which is a requirement rather than a programme. The first-time-buyer rule that people worry about most is the one several programmes do not have.
- Property: a price cap, and on city programmes a boundary. Both are published by whoever runs the programme.
- Income: a county-level limit, not a single statewide number.
- Credit: commonly a 620 minimum middle score on the statewide programmes.
- Education: a HUD-certified homebuyer course, required for all borrowers on several programmes.
Do you actually have to be a first-time buyer?
Often not, and this is the single most useful thing on the page. Brad puts it plainly: "a lot of the things that are aimed at first time buyers actually don't have a very strict first time home buyer requirement. This is why you gotta know the rules." The clearest example is TDHCA's own: My Choice Texas Home carries no first-time-buyer requirement and is open to repeat buyers, while its sibling My First Texas Home does. Two programmes, one agency, deliberately different names, opposite answers to the question most people disqualify themselves on.
And where the rule does apply, it is a three-year test rather than a never test
Where a first-time rule exists it generally means you have not owned AND occupied a principal residence in the last three years, which is a very different thing from never having owned a home. TDHCA also exempts qualified veterans and property in a qualified targeted census tract from the rule entirely. A buyer who owned a home four years ago is, for these purposes, a first-time buyer again.
Divorce changes how two people are counted
This is the case people are most reluctant to ask about, and Brad answers it directly: two people who owned together "would not be considered first time homebuyers, but now that legally we are no longer one, they look at you as sort of a new creature." How that applies to a specific file is for the lender and the programme, not for a web page, but it is worth asking rather than assuming the answer is no.
How good does your credit actually have to be?
Lower than the number most people arrive with, and the programmes publish theirs. Across the statewide programmes we checked, the floor is a 620 minimum middle score: TDHCA states it for My First Texas Home, and TSAHC states "a credit score of 620" for both Home Sweet Texas Home and Homes for Texas Heroes. Brad's working version is that special programmes "become possible at six twenty and way easier at six forty", and the pricing bears that out -- Homes for Texas Heroes carries an additional fee on scores in the 620 to 639 band, so the programme itself prices the gap he describes.
Below the programme floor is a different conversation
Brad's own line is that you should not assume you need a seven hundred score, and that a lender can issue a mortgage well below the programme floors -- he gives a figure in the high five hundreds. 🔴 That is his experience of what lenders will write, not a rule this page asserts, and it is a loan question rather than an assistance question: clearing a lender's minimum is not the same as clearing a programme's. He is equally blunt the other way when a file is not there yet: "it's not going to work. We're going to have to get your credit up."
| Programme | Published credit minimum | First-time buyer rule |
|---|---|---|
| My First Texas Home (TDHCA) | 620 minimum middle FICO | Yes, with exemptions for qualified veterans and targeted census tracts |
| My Choice Texas Home (TDHCA) | 620 | 🟢 None. Open to repeat buyers |
| Home Sweet Texas Home (TSAHC) | 620 | None stated on the programme page |
| Homes for Texas Heroes (TSAHC) | 620, with an additional fee on 620-639 | Targeted at listed professions rather than at first-time buyers |
| Texas Mortgage Credit Certificate | No minimum when taken stand-alone | Yes, with the same exemptions |
What should you do before you assume you do not qualify?
Check the gate that actually applies rather than the one you are worried about. Most people who rule themselves out do it on the first-time rule or on income, and both are the gates most likely to be wrong in their favour. Pull your middle score rather than a free estimate, since the programmes use the middle of three. Then take the specific address and the specific household to a participating lender, because the combination is what decides it. Nothing here is an approval, and a lender decides what a lender decides.
Want this checked against your own situation?
The free class covers the whole picture in 45 minutes. Or take two minutes and see which programs are worth a look for someone in your position.