Florida Down Payment Assistance: What The Lender Ads Leave Out

Start here: three of the four programs are not forgivable

This is the part that gets glossed over, and it is the part that costs money. Hometown Heroes, FL Assist and FL HLP are loans. You make no monthly payment on the first two, which makes them feel like grants, but the balance comes out of your proceeds the day you sell or refinance. On a $35,000 Hometown Heroes second, that is $35,000 less equity at closing than you might be picturing. That is still a very good deal — it is 0% money that let you buy years earlier — but you should know it is a lien on the house and not a gift.

The genuinely forgivable one is PLUS, which forgives 20% per year over five years. It is smaller and it gets far less attention. If you expect to move within five years, run both ways: forgiveness you never earn is worth nothing, and a 0% deferred balance may cost you less.

Program terms as published 2026-07-06 by Florida Housing participating lenders. Hometown Heroes is generally the only second mortgage allowed alongside its first mortgage. It does not stack with FL Assist or PLUS.

Who actually qualifies (it is not about your job title)

The persistent myth is that Hometown Heroes is a teacher, nurse and first responder program. Eligibility is set by your employer category and physical work location, not by your job title. The published occupation lists are explicitly examples and are not a closed list. Your employer must have a brick-and-mortar Florida address you actually work from. A city name or a virtual address does not satisfy it.

The remote-work trap. Fully remote employees are not eligible. This is the most common reason an otherwise-qualified buyer gets denied. Hybrid employees qualify if they report to the employer’s Florida physical location at least three days a week. If you took a fully remote job during or after the pandemic and your employer has no Florida office you report to, this program is closed to you no matter what you do for a living or what you earn.

Self-employed and 1099. Full-time work for a single 1099 employer with a Florida physical location, documented by a CPA, bookkeeper, or tax preparer letter plus returns. Multiple part-time 1099 sources cannot be combined.

First-time buyer rule. No ownership interest in a primary residence in the past three years. Two exemptions: veterans with an other-than-dishonorable discharge, and buyers purchasing in a federally designated targeted area. Active-duty service members are not automatically exempt. Credit. Minimum 640 credit score.

Specific exclusions worth knowing before you get your hopes up:

• College and university employees (the education category is K-12)
• Hospital corporate-office employees who do not work at the facility
• Retail pharmacy cashiers
• Retired veterans with no current qualifying employment
• Anyone working fully remotely, regardless of employer

Income and price limits, all 67 counties

Two caps have to be satisfied at once: a household income limit that varies by county and household size, and a purchase price cap on the home itself. The income figures below are the Bond-program limits, which count income for everyone 18 and older living in the home — including a spouse who is not on the loan. The TBA and PLUS versions count only the credit-qualifying income of borrowers on the loan and are generally higher, so if you are just over the Bond limit, ask your lender about the TBA path before assuming you are out.

Click any county for its own page, with what the caps mean against that county’s actual housing stock.

Florida Housing Finance Corporation income and purchase price limits, published June 10, 2026 and applying to reservations made on or after May 6, 2026. Confirm your county and household size with a participating lender; limits are periodically revised.

Is the money still there?

The 2026 cycle opened July 13, 2026 with $50M, reserved first come first served through participating lenders. The previous allocation was fully committed before this relaunch. The published projection was roughly 7 to 8 months on the published projection, into early 2027. There is no live public balance to check, so treat any figure you read online — including this one — as of its date. Availability changes daily and is not published as a live balance. Confirm current status with a participating lender before you rely on it.

Practically, that means two things. If you are close to ready, get your file to a participating lender rather than waiting for a perfect listing. And do not write an offer that depends on assistance you have not reserved.

Where to go next

If you want the whole picture of what a first Florida purchase actually costs, including the parts assistance does not touch, read the first-time buyer numbers guide. Two costs surprise nearly every first Florida buyer and neither is covered by down payment help: insurance, which is finally falling but still large, and the property tax reset — the seller’s tax bill is capped by Save Our Homes and yours will not be.

When you are ready to look, homes for sale in Florida by city and county shows live listings with medians by ZIP, so you can see which counties and ZIPs sit under the purchase price cap before you fall for a house that does not.