There is a number attached to this county that I have not seen anyone in the market explain, and it is worth a chapter. This is the short version; the financing page is the long one.
The $805,000 Question
I queried HUD's official FHA Mortgage Limits lookup for calendar year 2026, state North Carolina, county Perquimans, FHA Forward. Here is what it returns:
$805,000
FHA one-unit limit, Perquimans County, CY2026
$541,287
CY2026 standard (floor) limit for the rest of NC
I then enumerated all one hundred North Carolina counties in the same lookup. Only nine exceed the floor, and Perquimans has the highest FHA loan limit of any county in North Carolina — ahead of Camden, Currituck and Gates at $757,850 and Dare at $718,750. Ninety-one counties sit at $541,287.
I am going to state the number and not explain it
Because I cannot, honestly. HUD's own published median sale price for Perquimans County on that same results page is $175,000, and 115% of that is nowhere near $805,000. The figure has been unchanged since at least CY2024 and the older rows carry "Last Revised 01/01/2021." I could find no official HUD statement explaining it — no grandfather provision, no hold-harmless clause, nothing.
So: it is real, it is current as of January 1, 2026, and I do not know why. Treat it as a number that could be corrected in a future year rather than a permanent feature, and verify it on HUD's lookup before you rely on it for anything consequential.
Two corrections to things people commonly assume:
Perquimans is not grouped with Pasquotank. This county used to sit inside the Elizabeth City micropolitan statistical area, and its CY2024 and CY2025 HUD rows show that. For CY2026, HUD lists Perquimans as NON-METRO, and the 2023 Census/OMB delineation file contains no entry for Perquimans at all. Pasquotank, meanwhile, sits under Elizabeth City, NC (21020) at the $541,287 floor. Two adjoining counties, both rural, wildly different FHA ceilings. If someone tells you the Elizabeth City area has a high FHA limit, they are half right and on the wrong side of the county line.
Conventional financing here is completely ordinary. The FHFA conforming limit for Perquimans County in 2026 is $832,750 — the plain national baseline, identical to Pasquotank's and to most of the country. The anomaly is FHA-only. This county has no general high-cost designation.
USDA: The Whole County Qualifies
USDA's Section 502 Guaranteed programme offers 100% financing — in USDA's own words, "no money down for those who qualify" — for eligible borrowers buying in eligible rural areas.
I checked eligibility against USDA Rural Development's own eligibility GIS service, the layer that backs the public eligibility map, and validated the method with controls first (Raleigh and Norfolk each correctly returned an ineligible-area hit). Then I tested downtown in the town of Hertford, the town's Census internal point, rural northeastern Perquimans, and finally the county's entire bounding box.
Zero ineligible polygons anywhere in or near Perquimans County. That is parcel-geography confirmation, not a county-level assumption: the whole county, including the town of Hertford itself, sits inside a USDA-eligible rural area.
The income rule is statutory and I will quote it rather than paraphrase: applicants must "meet income-eligibility (cannot exceed 115% of median household income)." I am not publishing a dollar income limit for this area, because USDA's rate-and-term documents block automated retrieval and I could not verify a current figure. Use USDA's own eligibility tool or ask a USDA-approved lender for the current number for your household size.
Why this combination is unusual
A county where zero-down USDA works everywhere and FHA will insure to $805,000 is a strange pair of facts to hold at once. In practice they serve completely different buyers: USDA is the entry-level path (income-capped, no down payment), and the FHA ceiling only ever matters at the very top of this market. Most transactions here touch neither extreme. But it does mean that almost nobody in this county is priced out of a loan programme by the programme's own limits.
The Closing-Table Line Nobody Budgets For
This is the part of the chapter that saves people actual money, and it is the reason I put closing costs in the same chapter as financing.
Perquimans County levies a local land transfer tax of $1.00 per $100 of consideration — one percent, rounded up to the next dollar — paid to the Register of Deeds at recording. The county publishes it on its own site. It applies to regular sales and exchanges, deeds from nonprofit and religious organisations, leases exceeding ten years (or with renewal options past ten years), and timber deeds. Exemptions include deeds of gift, foreclosure deeds and deeds in lieu, government transfers, short-term leases, transfers requiring no consideration, and transfers by operation of law, will, intestacy or merger.
Only seven North Carolina counties levy this tax. The county's own page names the others: Camden, Chowan, Currituck, Dare, Pasquotank and Washington.
And it is in addition to the statewide excise tax on conveyances under N.C.G.S. § 105-228.30, which is $1.00 on each $500 of consideration and is paid by the transferor before recording.
Do the arithmetic before you write the offer
On a $300,000 purchase the 1% local transfer tax is a four-figure line item. Who pays it is a matter of contract negotiation, not law — which means it is negotiable, which means it should be an explicit term in your offer rather than a surprise on the settlement statement. Buyers coming from the ninety-three North Carolina counties that do not have this tax have never seen the line before and routinely do not ask about it.
Property Tax
The county-only rate below is from the NC Department of Revenue's 2026–2027 county tax rate workbook, per $100 of valuation. The municipal figures carry over from the 2025–2026 table and have not been independently reverified for the current fiscal year — ask the tax office about the current in-town rate before relying on the combined figures:
| County rate | Municipal rate | Combined | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unincorporated Perquimans County | $0.55 | — | $0.55 |
| Town of Hertford | $0.55 | $0.52* | $1.07* |
| Winfall | $0.55 | $0.52* | $1.07* |
* Municipal rate carried over from the 2025–2026 table, not independently reverified for 2026–2027 — confirm with the town before relying on the combined figure.
The county's most recent revaluation was 2024, and the 2025 sales assessment ratio is 0.8742. The doubling inside town limits is the thing to notice: on identical assessed values, a house in the town of Hertford or in Winfall carries roughly twice the tax of a house just outside. That is not unusual — municipal services cost money — but it is a real monthly difference, and it deserves to be in your comparison when you are weighing an in-town house against a county one. Fire district and other special-district rates are not in the NCDOR table; ask the tax office about the specific parcel.
Historic Rehab Credits
If you are buying an old house, North Carolina's 15% homeowner rehabilitation credit may apply — $10,000 minimum spend, $22,500 maximum credit, and it covers buildings certified as contributing to a National Register district, which includes qualifying properties in the Hertford and Hertford West districts. The statute sunsets for expenses incurred on or after January 1, 2030. The federal 20% credit does not apply to owner-occupied homes. Full treatment in Chapter 3 and on the tax credit page.
What is the FHA loan limit in Perquimans County?
$805,000 for a one-unit property for calendar year 2026, per HUD's official FHA Mortgage Limits lookup. That is the highest FHA limit of any county in North Carolina — the standard limit in ninety-one NC counties is $541,287. Verify it on HUD's lookup before relying on it; there is no published explanation for the figure and it could be revised.
Does Pasquotank County have the same FHA limit?
No. Pasquotank is at the $541,287 floor. Perquimans was in the Elizabeth City micropolitan area for CY2024 and CY2025 but is listed as NON-METRO for CY2026, and the two counties now sit in different buckets with very different limits despite being adjacent.
Can I use a USDA loan in the town of Hertford?
Yes. The entire county, including downtown in the town of Hertford, sits inside a USDA-eligible rural area — confirmed against USDA's own eligibility GIS layer with controls, at parcel geography rather than county level. Section 502 Guaranteed offers 100% financing for borrowers whose income does not exceed 115% of area median household income. Get the current income limit from USDA's tool or a USDA-approved lender.
What is the land transfer tax in Perquimans County?
1% of consideration — $1.00 per $100, rounded up — paid to the Register of Deeds at recording, on top of North Carolina's statewide excise tax of $1.00 per $500. Only seven NC counties levy it. Who pays is negotiable between buyer and seller, so make it an explicit term of the offer rather than a surprise at settlement.
What is the property tax rate?
For fiscal year 2026–27: $0.55 per $100 of valuation county-wide. The town of Hertford and Winfall add a municipal rate carried over from the prior fiscal year's $0.52 figure (not independently reverified for the current year), for an approximate combined $1.07 inside either town. Last revaluation was 2024. Special district rates are not included in the state table — ask the county tax office about the parcel.
Sources for this chapter. FHA limits, the NC standard limit, and the all-100-county comparison: HUD's FHA Mortgage Limits lookup for CY2026, corroborated by HUD news release 25-145 and Mortgagee Letters 2025-22 and 2025-23. CBSA status: U.S. Census / OMB 2023 delineation file. Conforming limit: FHFA 2026 county loan limit file. USDA programme terms: USDA Rural Development Single Family Housing Guaranteed Loan Program; eligibility geography checked against USDA RD's own eligibility map service. Land transfer tax: Perquimans County's land transfer tax page. State excise tax: N.C.G.S. § 105-228.30. County property tax rate, revaluation year and assessment ratio: NC Department of Revenue, 2026–2027 County Tax Rates and Reappraisal Schedules workbook, downloaded and parsed directly (verified 2026-08-27). Municipal rates for the town of Hertford and Winfall are carried over from the 2025–2026 table and flagged above as unverified for the current year. No USDA dollar income limit is published here because the source blocks automated retrieval and no figure could be verified.
Questions about a specific property in Perquimans County?
Travis works waterfront, historic and in-town transactions across Perquimans County and can map the financing, the CAMA questions and the due-diligence order to the specific property you are looking at.