Buying a first home in Fort Worth, Texas

What will Fort Worth actually put toward a first home?

Up to $25,000, interest-free, toward the down payment and closing costs on a home inside the Fort Worth city limits. The City runs it as the Homebuyer Assistance Program through its Neighborhoods department, and you choose how the money is split: either about 6% of it to closing costs and the rest to the down payment, or the whole amount straight into the down payment. The exact figure depends on the sale price and on the loan the approved lender writes.

• The property has to sit inside Fort Worth city limits. A Fort Worth mailing address in a neighbouring jurisdiction is a different programme, or none.
• You must be a first-time buyer, or not have owned a home in the last three years. Displaced homeowners may still be eligible.
• The sale price is capped by federal HOME rules at 95% of the area median sales price, under 24 CFR 92.254(a)(2)(iii).
• Government-owned properties are excluded.
• Source, and the page to check before relying on any figure here: fortworthtexas.gov

How long does taking the money commit you?

That is the part worth reading twice, because Fort Worth prices its assistance in years rather than in interest. The residency requirement scales with the amount: take up to $25,000 and you agree to live in the home as your principal residence for ten years. Take up to $14,999 and the commitment is five. Keep to it and the money is forgiven entirely. There is no interest either way, so what the larger number really costs is a decade of staying put.

What does the programme ask of you before it pays?

More than most, and two of the requirements catch people who assumed assistance meant bringing nothing. You still put in money of your own, and you still have to hold money back after closing.

• A minimum contribution of your own: $1,000 or 2% of the purchase price, whichever is LESS.
• 🔴 Reserves equal to two months of mortgage payments, and the City states these cannot be gift funds. Money a relative gives you does not count toward this.
• You must qualify for a first-lien mortgage from a city-approved lender, so the lender comes before the application rather than after it.
• An eight-hour homeownership education class with a HUD-certified agency, at no cost. The City names Housing Opportunities of Fort Worth, Housing Channel and Trinity Habitat for Humanity.
• The home must pass a Minimum Acceptable Standards Inspection and a City of Fort Worth Environmental Review.

What do Tarrant County taxes do to the payment?

The same thing they do across the metro, which is to decide more than the price does. Brad works the whole of Dallas-Fort Worth and is blunt about the spread: there are taxes in DFW as high as 3.1 per cent, and he can name the single highest-taxed area in the metro without looking it up. The practical version he gives buyers is about what a payment can actually reach: there are a couple of pockets where he can still land one around $1,900, and when a buyer hoped for a figure below that, his answer was that it will not happen anywhere in DFW. Those are his measurements across real files rather than a published table, and they are about the metro Fort Worth is half of.

Where should a Fort Worth buyer start?

With the lender, because this programme requires a city-approved one and the application goes through them rather than around them. Then the education class, since it is required and free and the slots are not infinite. Then decide the amount, which is really a decision about how long you intend to stay. And work out the payment with the tax line in it before you decide what you can look at. Nothing here is an approval, and a lender decides what a lender decides.