Down Payment Assistance in Texas: HAP, TSAHC, TDHCA

Texas has three assistance programs a Fort Worth buyer can realistically reach: the city’s own Homebuyer Assistance Program, TSAHC’s two loan programs, and TDHCA’s My First Texas Home. Between them you can put $25,000 or 5% of your loan toward a down payment, and in the right combination somewhat more.

What almost nothing written about these programs tells you is that most of that money is not free. It is priced into your interest rate, and TSAHC publishes exactly how much. Understanding that trade is the difference between assistance that saves you money and assistance that quietly costs you more than it gave.

How the numbers in this guide work. Every dollar example is anchored to Fort Worth’s $319,999 median sale price for May 2026, the figure in my market report. Program terms come from the primary sources: the City of Fort Worth, TSAHC, and TDHCA. Interest rates in the comparison section are TSAHC’s own program rates for a 620-score FHA loan, read off its loan comparison calculator on August 27, 2026. They are program pricing rather than market averages, which is why they sit apart from the 6.65% Freddie Mac survey figure for the week ending August 20, 2026. FHA examples finance the 1.75% upfront mortgage insurance premium, charged on the base loan amount, giving a $314,203 loan on the median with 3.5% down. Assistance tiers below are percentages of that loan amount, and income limits are percentages of the HUD area median.

The Three Programs at a Glance

Program	Who runs it	Tracks	Assistance	Structure	Min score
Fort Worth HAP	City of Fort Worth	Single program	Up to $25,000	Forgivable city second lien, 10 years	620 via lender
TSAHC	State nonprofit	Home Sweet Texas, Homes for Texas Heroes	Up to 5% of loan	Grant or 3-year forgivable second lien	620, or 640 conventional
TDHCA	State agency	My First Texas Home, My Choice Texas Home	Up to 5% of loan	Deferred or forgivable second lien	620

Each state provider runs two tracks that are identical in what they pay and differ only in who qualifies, which is why they sit on one row rather than four. The two TSAHC tracks split on occupation. Homes for Texas Heroes covers teachers, teacher aides, school librarians, counselors and nurses, police and public security officers, firefighters and EMS, corrections and juvenile corrections officers, veterans and active military, and nursing and allied health faculty. Home Sweet Texas covers everyone else within the income limits.

TDHCA’s two tracks split on a different axis: My First Texas Home is for first-time buyers, and My Choice Texas Home drops that requirement.

Fort Worth HAP: The One to Check First

If the house is inside Fort Worth city limits, start here, and not only because $25,000 beats 5% of a median loan by roughly $9,000. Start here because HAP is a separate city lien rather than a rate adjustment on your mortgage, which means it does not make your first mortgage more expensive the way state assistance does.

The terms, from the city’s published guidelines:

• Up to $25,000, interest-free, toward down payment and closing costs. You can put 6% toward closing costs and the rest toward the down payment, or all of it toward the down payment.
• Forgiveness runs on residency. Live in the home 10 years and the full $25,000 is forgiven. Take $14,999 or less and the term drops to 5 years. Sell before the term is up and you repay the remaining balance from your proceeds, amortized down as you approach the 10-year mark.
• Income at or below 80% of area median, adjusted for household size.
• First-time buyer, or no ownership in the last 3 years. Displaced homeowners may qualify.
• Purchase price capped at 95% of the area median sales price, under HOME regulation 24 CFR 92.254(a)(2)(iii).
• A city-approved lender must write your first mortgage.
• Your own money in the deal: a minimum contribution of $1,000 or 2% of the purchase price, whichever is less. On the Fort Worth median that is $1,000.
• 2 months of reserves, and these cannot be gift funds.
• An 8-hour homeownership education class with a HUD-certified agency, at no cost.
• The house has to pass a Minimum Acceptable Standards inspection and a City of Fort Worth environmental review.

The July 2026 income limits:

Household size	Maximum income
1	$61,800
2	$70,600
3	$79,450
4	$88,250
5	$95,350
6	$102,400
7	$109,450
8	$116,500

HUD refreshes these in early summer, so check the current table rather than a number you read last year.

Two of those requirements deserve emphasis because they are where buyers get surprised. The reserves cannot be a gift, which catches families planning to be helped by a relative. And the city is explicit that you pay the earnest money, option fee, home inspection, and appraisal out of your own pocket. HAP funds the down payment; it does not fund getting to the closing table.

For the free education class, Fort Worth has four HUD-certified partners: Housing Channel, Housing Opportunities of Fort Worth, Trinity Habitat for Humanity, and the Hispanic Real Estate Brokers Association’s counseling arm in Arlington. Take it early. You need it for HAP regardless, and it is the best free credit coaching available in this market.

TSAHC: Grant or Second Lien, and the Rate You Pay for It

TSAHC is a nonprofit created by the Texas Legislature, it operates statewide, and it is the most flexible of the three because you choose how the assistance arrives.

As a grant, the money is never repaid. As a deferred forgivable second lien, it is forgiven after 3 years unless you sell or refinance before then. Both come attached to a 30-year fixed first mortgage through an approved lender, and you apply through the lender rather than to TSAHC directly.

Credit floors are 620 for FHA, VA, and USDA products and 640 for the conventional HFA Advantage and HFA Preferred products. There is no maximum debt-to-income ratio with automated underwriting approval. FHA manual underwrites are allowed up to a 43% debt-to-income ratio with a 640 minimum score. Income limits vary by county, with expanded limits in designated targeted areas.

First-time buyers can add a Mortgage Credit Certificate, a federal tax credit now set at a 15% credit rate on the mortgage interest you pay, which reduces your federal tax liability every year you hold the loan and helps your debt-to-income ratio at underwriting. It has to be combined with TSAHC assistance; the standalone version was discontinued. It is free for Texas Heroes.

The Part Nobody Puts in Writing: Assistance Costs Rate

Here is TSAHC’s own published pricing, and it is the most useful table on this page. These are its program rates for a 620-score FHA loan on August 27, 2026, not market averages. VA and USDA price on their own ladders, and TSAHC repriced these several times over the summer, so pull a current quote before you commit to a tier.

Assistance taken	Structure	Rate
None	No second lien	6.250%
2%	3-year forgivable second lien	6.500%
3%	3-year forgivable second lien	6.750%
4%	3-year forgivable second lien	6.875%
5%	3-year forgivable second lien	7.125%

Taking the maximum assistance costs you 87.5 basis points on the first mortgage, seven-eighths of a point. Run that on the Fort Worth median, with an FHA loan of $314,203 after the financed upfront premium:

Assistance	Cash at closing	Monthly P&I	Extra per month	Break-even
None at 6.250%	$0	$1,935	n/a	n/a
2% at 6.500%	$6,284	$1,986	$51	123 months
3% at 6.750%	$9,426	$2,038	$103	92 months
4% at 6.875%	$12,568	$2,064	$129	97 months
5% at 7.125%	$15,710	$2,117	$182	86 months

Read the break-even column as the month at which the higher rate has cost you back everything the assistance handed you. It is just the cash column divided by the extra-per-month column, so you can check every row of it. At the 5% tier that is 7 years and 2 months. Hold the loan the full 30 years without refinancing and the rate premium costs $65,520, which is $182 a month across 360 payments, to have received $15,710 at closing.

That is not an argument against assistance. It is an argument for matching the tier to your actual plan:

Take the assistance if the alternative is not buying. A buyer who cannot assemble $15,710 has no other option, and the alternative to a 7.125% mortgage is renting while Fort Worth prices do whatever they do. Break-even math is irrelevant when the counterfactual is not owning.

Take the assistance if you expect to refinance. The rate premium only compounds while you hold the loan. Rates fall, you refinance out, and the second lien is forgiven at 3 years regardless. That is the strongest case on this page.

Take less than the maximum if you can. The 2% tier costs 25 basis points above the no-assistance rate and the 3% tier costs 50, against 87.5 at the 5% tier. The pricing is neither linear nor even consistently ordered: on this sheet the 4% tier breaks even later than the 3% tier, at 97 months against 92, so the tier you should take is worth checking rather than assuming. What holds every time is that the top tier is the worst value on the page and the 2% tier is the best, running more than 10 years before it costs you anything.

Skip it if you have the cash and plan to stay. Paying your own down payment and taking 6.250% is straightforwardly cheaper over any long horizon.

And this is exactly why HAP comes first inside city limits: the city’s $25,000 is a separate lien that leaves your first mortgage rate alone. You can pair HAP with a market-rate first mortgage and get the cash without the rate premium. That combination is the best outcome available to a Fort Worth buyer, and it is worth organizing your search around city limits to reach it.

TDHCA: My First Texas Home and My Choice Texas Home

TDHCA is the state housing agency, and its Homebuyer Program pairs a 30-year low-interest mortgage with down payment and closing cost assistance of up to 5% of the loan amount, delivered as a second lien with 0% interest. Deferred and forgivable structures are both available depending on the product.

My First Texas Home is for first-time buyers, with the usual exceptions for qualified veterans and targeted areas. My Choice Texas Home has no first-time requirement, which makes it the practical option for a repeat buyer who still fits the income limits. Minimum score is 620, and income and purchase-price limits are set by county.

TDHCA also issues a Texas Mortgage Credit Certificate, available to veterans and first-time buyers with a program first mortgage and, unlike TSAHC’s, still available standalone with no minimum credit score. Supply is limited.

Completing an approved homebuyer education course is required for any TDHCA assistance. If you already took the 8-hour class for HAP, confirm with your lender that the certificate satisfies both rather than sitting through it twice.

Stacking, and the Cash You Still Need

The layering rule in practice: a city program and a state program can sometimes be combined, but two state programs cannot. HAP plus TSAHC is a conversation worth having with a lender approved for both. TSAHC plus TDHCA is not.

What no program covers is the cash it takes to get from an accepted offer to the closing table, and this is where first-time buyers most often stall out. Even with $25,000 of assistance approved, you are expected to produce:

• Earnest money, typically 1% of the purchase price
• The option fee, $100 to $500
• The home inspection, roughly $600 once the standard add-ons are included, on a base fee of $390 to $500 for the 2,000-to-4,000-square-foot house a median purchase usually is
• The appraisal, roughly $600
• 2 months of reserves that cannot be gift funds
• Your minimum contribution, $1,000 on a median-priced home

The programs fund the down payment. They do not fund the diligence.

What I Cover, and Why It Lines Up

That list above is close to a description of my written guarantees, and that is not a coincidence. It is the gap assistance programs leave open.

I pay for the home inspection out of my own pocket, roughly $600 on a typical Fort Worth home once the standard add-ons are included. I coordinate the appraisal through the lender so you never write a check for it, roughly $600 again. If you lose your earnest money for any reason during the deal, I write you a personal check to cover the full amount. Buyers never pay my commission at all, and if the seller will not cover it I absorb the difference. There is a $500 moving credit at closing. None of that interferes with HAP, TSAHC, My First Texas Home, or any other program, because it is my money rather than program funds.

And if I am ever late, dishonest, or drop a ball on a commitment, I send you $100 on the spot. That is worth something on an assistance purchase specifically, because these deals have more moving parts than a standard closing: a city application, an approved lender, an education certificate, a Minimum Acceptable Standards inspection, and an environmental review, all of which have to land inside your contract timeline.

Two other pieces to have straight before you apply. Your credit score determines which programs you can reach at all, since 620 gates every one of them. And the pre-approval has to come from a lender approved for the specific program you want, which is a shorter list than the general lender market. The wider first-time buyer guide covers how the whole sequence fits together.

Find Out Which Program Fits Before You Apply

The wrong version of this decision is applying for the biggest number available. The right version is matching the program to your income, your target zip code, your credit, and how long you actually intend to hold the loan.

Book a free 10-minute Initial Consultation and we will work out whether the house you want is inside city limits, whether your household clears the 80% area median threshold, and whether taking the full 5% or a smaller tier leaves you better off. I will run the break-even on your real numbers rather than the median. If the call wastes your time I will send you $100.

If you would rather hear it from my past clients first, ask for the list. They publish their phone numbers.