About Franklin County, PA

Looking to buy a home in Franklin County, Pennsylvania?

You might want to make a quick check to see if you and the property are eligible for a Pennsylvania USDA Mortgage, also known as a Pennsylvania USDA Rural Development Loan. Here's Why... USDA home loans offer a few benefits that other mortgage programs cannot match, including no down payment and financed closing cost. If the home appraisal allows, the closing costs can also be wrapped into the mortgage resulting in no money needed at the closing table. USDA is the only mortgage program that allows for all closing costs to be financed into the loan amount on a home purchase. Interest rates for USDA mortgages are comparable and often lower than the low fixed rates of Conventional, FHA and VA financing. The USDA Mortgage program does have restrictions when it comes to location and income, so a quick check on this key qualifying criteria should be done first.

Benefits of the USDA Mortgage Program True 100% no money down financing. The ability to finance in your closing costs (if the appraised value supports the loan amt) The seller may contribute up to 6% of the purchase price towards your closing costs Low fixed interest rates. More flexible credit qualifying guidelines with minimum 620 credit score Often available for properties in towns and suburbs too

What areas of Franklin County are eligible for USDA Financing?

The USDA has zoned ALL of Franklin County as eligible for their USDA Rural Development Mortgage Program, including all of Chambersburg, Waynesboro, Greencastle, Mercersburg and Mont Alto.

USDA Eligible Areas in Franklin County include...

• Altenwald
• Amberson
• Aqua
• Beautiful
• Biesecker Gap
• Bino
• Blue Ridge Summit
• Boggstown
• Chambersburg
• Charlestown
• Charmian
• Cheesetown
• Clay Hill
• Claylick
• Concord
• Cosytown
• Cove Gap
• Cowans Gap
• Cowans Village
• Cress
• Dickey
• Doylesburg
• Dry Run
• Duffield
• Eastland Hill
• Fannett
• Fannettsburg
• Fayetteville
• Fiveforks
• Fort Loudon
• Fox Hill
• Franklin Furnace
• Glen Forney
• Good
• Greencastle
• Greenvillage
• Guilford
• Guilford Springs
• Housum
• Jackson Hall
• Kasiesville
• Kauffman
• Kerrstown
• Keystone
• Lemasters
• Letterke
• Lurgan
• Marion
• Markes
• Mercersburg
• Metal
• Milnor
• Mont Alto
• New Franklin
• Nyesville
• Orrstown
• Pen Mar
• Pennersville
• Peters Township
• Pleasant Hall
• Polktown
• Pond Bank
• Quincy
• Red Bridge
• Richmond Furnace
• Roadside
• Rouzerville
• Roxbury
• Saint Thomas
• Scotland
• Shady Grove
• Shimpstown
• South Mountain
• Spring Run
• State Line
• Stoufferstown
• Sunbeam
• Sylvan
• Tomstown
• Turkeyfoot
• Tuscarora Heights
• Upper Strasburg
• Upton
• Warren Township
• Waynecastle
• Wayne Heights
• Waynesboro
• Welsh Run
• Weltys
• Williamson
• Willow Hill
• Worleytown
• Zullinger

What are the USDA Mortgage Income Limits for Franklin County?

Household Size: 1-4 Family Members 5 or more Family Members

Maximum Adjusted Income $74,050 $97,750

If at first glance, it appears your household income exceeds the above limits, it is worth checking the USDA Income Calculator on the USDA website (link below). The USDA allows for several deductions which may allow your Household Income to fit within their Maximum Adjusted Income Guidelines.

USDA Income Eligibility Worksheet

Ok, the Property is in a USDA Eligible Area and your Household Income is within the USDA Income Limits, now what?

Like all mortgages, USDA Mortgages do require an applicant to qualify based on recent credit history. USDA credit requirements are some of the most flexible of any mortgage program available. More detailed information about USDA Mortgage Credit Requirements can be found with the link below...

USDA Credit Requirements

For buyers looking to purchase a home in Franklin County Pennsylvania, the USDA Rural Development Mortgage is definitely worth a look. Feel free to contact me with any further questions about the program.

For all number crunchers out there, here's what happened in Chambersburg and Franklin County, PA during September 2011. Basically, the positive trends of the past few months continued in September, adding weight to the argument that the real estate market in Franklin County is recovering, albeit slowly.

The number of homes sold in September, 120, was up 20% from a year ago, and the dollar volume of sales was up by nearly 17% to $19.7 million for the month. New listings were up modestly versus September 2010, but the number of active listings was down 11.3% to a 9.1 month supply at the current rate of sales. This is a big improvement compared with last year at this time, when over a year's supply of homes clogged the market.

Total pendings (homes under contract but not yet sold), which had been up smartly for several months, slowed down in September to 181, six fewer than in September 2010. New pendings were flat. Average days-on-market was 130 in September, in line with the five-year average and down from the high of 150 days a year ago. The market is still anemic, so one wouldn't expect these bits of good news to show up in firmer prices. Sure enough, the median sold price, at $151,200, was down 3.7% from September 2010--but at least it was up 6.9% from a month before.

As usual, people selling upper-brackets homes for this market need to understand the power of patience. In September 2011, the number of MLS-listed homes priced above $500,000 was 33. The number sold was...zero, nada, none. Two houses sold between $400,000 and $499,999 (of 20 on offer), and three sold between $300,000 and $399,999 out of 72 for sale. Bad as this sounds, September was actually a fairly active month at the higher price brackets.

What will the future bring? The old crystal ball is cloudy as usual. The local unemployment rate that was improving last spring lately has ticked back up to 7.2% in August. So, despite amazing interest rates (rates on a 30-year fixed-rate loan dipped below 4% for awhile last month) we expect home sales and prices to trend stable to slightly negative over the next six months.

The upshot is that homes are more affordable now that they've been in a long time. For the same payment that bought a $175,000 house last year, buyers can now step up to a $200,000 house. That's huge. In Chambersburg, Greencastle and Waynesboro, that can mean four bedrooms vs. three, for example. With prices not exactly in growth mode, it pays to have a healthy time horizon, say five years or more, to stay in the home.

Sellers, meanwhile, as a class aren't happy people. However, those with a solid reason to sell might as well list (smartly) and get it over with, because prices probably are going a little bit lower and then are expected to be stable (or flat-lined, if you want to think of that way) for some time to come--maybe years. Therefore, families should weigh carefully the pros and cons of putting off their future plans in the hope that prices may improve in the near term.

Market details for Franklin and other counties are available for the asking, for those who haven't yet satisfied their appetite for statistics (assuming such creatures exist, of course.)

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What you get when you finance your FHA 203k renovation project with Brent & Team:

• 16 Years of Renovation Mortgage Finance
• Communication & Clarity on Process, Costs and Expectations
• Experience looking out for your best interests throughout the entire process
  
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• Brent Calls Balls/Strikes with all parties to PROTECT YOUR INTERESTS.

Check out Brent's website for further details:

Check Out our list of Satisfied Customers and what they have to say about Brent Kluge & Group.


The FHA 203K mortgage requires action early in the process to set the stage for proper transaction flow...


A phone call for a discussion about your project costs nothing... but you could save thousands.

The real estate market in Franklin County, PA disappointed in March, as the modest gains posted in February were not extended the following month. Neighboring Washington County, MD fared no better, with sold dollar volume down 15.5% and similar declines in average and median sold prices.

At 107, the number of Franklin County homes sold in March was two more than the 105 sold in March 2010. That was about it for the good news. Dollar volume of homes sold and the average sold price both were down by double-digits; the average sold price was down 12.7% and the median sold price was down 6.7%. Average days on market increased 40% to just over six months.

There must be something positive in the numbers, right? Well, inventories continued to fall year-over-year in Franklin and Washington Counties. Active listings in Franklin were down 8.2% from March 2010, chiefly because new listings were off by 20.5%; however, total pendings also declined by 15.6%, which does not bode well for April's results. Washington County was a bit happier place, with active listings down 10.1% (new listings down a massive 28.2%) and pendings up 7.4%.

Financing in March looked like this for Franklin County. FHA loans were used in 17% of transactions for which financing was reported; VA loans accounted for 9%. Twenty-seven percent of homes sold for cash. The remainder were financed mostly with conventional or USDA Rural Housing loans. In Washington County, 31% of transactions were financed via FHA, 8% were VA, and a full third of homes were bought with cash. Only 28% of homes were financed with conventional or "other" means in Washington County during March.

What does any of this tell us about the future? The market in Franklin remains soft, and April is likely to see little change. A year ago, federal tax credits still were in place and plumped up the sales figures somewhat. Sales fell off after the tax credits expired at the end of April 2010, so we might expect sales in May and subsequent months this year to be ahead of 2010's results just for this reason.

We hear in media reports that more and more buyers are venturing into the real estate market, drawn by good selection, good prices, extra-good rates and an improving economy. More shoppers may indeed be out there, but their presence isn't showing in the numbers just yet.

Source - RealEstate Business Intelligence, LLC, an MRIS company. Information deemed reliable but is not guaranteed.