Florida Assist: the first-time buyer help that isn't a grant

Help that can't ride alone

It's late, the A/C is humming, and you've got more browser tabs open than you'd care to admit. Every one of them is about Florida's first-time buyer help, and half of them toss around the word "grant" like it's free sunscreen at a beach bar.

Some of those tabs are right. A few are very confidently wrong.

You're already doing the homework most buyers skip. So let's clear the fog.

Most of Florida's statewide help comes from Florida Housing Finance Corporation, the state's housing finance agency. It doesn't hand out money on its own. Its help comes through participating lenders, riding alongside one of Florida Housing's own first mortgages, and Florida Housing says plainly that its down payment help isn't available as a stand-alone.

Think of it as a motorcycle with a sidecar. (Very Daytona Bike Week.) The first mortgage is the bike that gets you to the house. The second is the sidecar that carries part of your cash to close. And a sidecar, as anyone who's seen one parked by itself can tell you, doesn't go anywhere on its own.

Florida Housing lists these checks for its homebuyer program:

• A credit score of at least 640.
• First-time buyer status, which means you haven't owned and lived in your primary residence in the last three years.
• An approved homebuyer education course.
• Income and price inside the limits for the county where you buy.

1. $10,000, deferred

Florida Assist has no monthly payment and comes due when you sell, refinance or move out.

2. Forgiven over time

The PLUS second is forgiven a fifth each year over five years.

3. Tax credit

An MCC trims your federal income tax each year instead of paying toward closing.

The sidecar you pay for later (and why that's fine)

A lot of websites call Florida Assist a grant. Florida Housing doesn't. It describes Florida Assist as up to $10,000 on FHA, VA, USDA and conventional loans, set up as a 0%, non-amortizing, deferred second mortgage, and it says the loan isn't forgivable. In plain English, non-amortizing means you don't chip away at it month by month, and deferred means it waits until later.

"Grant" is the most overused word in first-time buyer marketing.

So what does that mean day to day? This sidecar rides along quietly. There's no monthly payment on it, and the balance doesn't grow. It sits behind your main loan until one of the moments Florida Housing names: you sell or transfer the home, refinance, pay off the first mortgage, or stop living there. Then it's due in full.

That $10,000 can cover a real slice of your down payment and your Florida closing costs.

Florida Housing has a second option too, the Florida Homeownership Loan Program second mortgage, at $12,500. Same sidecar idea, but this one comes with its own fuel bill: unlike Florida Assist, it comes with a monthly payment, which can count when your debt-to-income (the share of your monthly income that goes to debts) is figured.

The sidecar that disappears a piece at a time

If you're picturing help you never pay back, this is the one to ask about. Florida Housing's PLUS second mortgage gives 3%, 4% or 5% of the total loan amount, and it's forgiven 20% a year over five years. (A sidecar that slowly vanishes. Honestly, the best kind.)

The PLUS second pairs only with Florida Housing's conventional first mortgages. Its homebuyer page names two, HFA Preferred and HFA Advantage, while the most recent lender guide we read lists only HFA Advantage, so which one is open on the day you're ready is worth checking.

Because it's forgiven a piece at a time, how long you plan to stay in the home becomes part of choosing it.

If you work in health care, a school, public safety, child care or the military, Florida Hometown Heroes is a separate program of its own, offering up to 5% of your first mortgage, capped at $35,000.

Who gets to ride: income limits by county

Florida Housing sets income limits county by county, and for Florida Assist your household size matters: one limit for one or two people, a higher one for three or more. Below is a sample of the 2026 Florida Assist income limits by county for a few large counties, for Florida Assist paired with Florida Housing's TBA first mortgages, effective with reservations made on or after May 6, 2026.

Source: Florida Housing Finance Corporation, 2026 income and loan limits in its TBA lender guide, effective May 6, 2026. Florida Housing publishes these tables as images, so confirm your own county's line before you count on it.

Go ahead and find your county. (Everybody does it first. It's fine.)

A few things move these numbers. Florida Housing's bond first mortgages use their own income limits and add a cap on the purchase price. Homes in federally targeted areas can have higher limits. And how your household income is counted is settled when a loan officer looks at your file.

Not a sidecar at all: the MCC

A Mortgage Credit Certificate doesn't ride along at closing. It isn't a sidecar at all. It's closer to a rebate you claim every tax season: it lets you claim part of the mortgage interest you pay each year as a federal tax credit, a dollar-for-dollar cut to the income tax you owe.

Florida Housing describes the credit as 10% to 50% of your mortgage interest, capped at $2,000 a year when the credit is above 20%, with the rest of your interest still eligible for the usual deduction.

One honest update: Florida Housing no longer offers an MCC, and hasn't issued one since the end of 2020. Some local housing finance authorities still do. Broward County's, for one, started a program in January 2026 that runs until its credit is used up or through 2028, whichever comes first.

There's a recapture tax (a tax that claws back part of the benefit) to know about if you sell within the first nine years, but Florida Housing notes it only applies when three things all happen: you sell in that window, you make a profit, and your income has risen past the allowed limit. Think of a lock that only opens when three keys turn at once.

Because an MCC works year after year rather than once at closing, it's worth asking whether one is open in the county where you're buying.

It's easy to talk yourself out of help like this. A website calls it a grant and you feel misled, or the word loan sounds heavier than it is, and you close the tab. Nobody should pass on help they'd qualify for because somebody called it the wrong thing.

Pick your sidecar before you pick your house, and the whole ride gets smoother.