The conforming loan limit and its related FHA, VA, and USDA thresholds draw the line between standard mortgages and the jumbo loans that follow different pricing rules. This guide walks through the current dollar amounts, how each program’s limit is calculated, and the strategic moves that hinge on whether your loan sits a dollar above or below the line.
Since every borrower's circumstances are unique, a loan that works for a buyer down the street most likely won't work for you. However, the same set of restrictions (loan limits) come up in practically every discussion I have on home financing. Every mortgage application has them in the background, and most buyers don't give them much thought until a pricing point or refinance number approaches the point at which they become significant.
Learning the rules now will only help you later. The Federal Housing Finance Agency's conforming loan limit, HUD's floor and ceiling for FHA loans, the Department of Veterans Affairs' entitlement structure, and the USDA Section 502 program's income caps don't only set the maximum amount you can borrow. They determine which loan products you are eligible for, the required down payment amount, the amount of your monthly payment, and whether your file is ever sent to Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae for underwriting in the first place.
There is more to this guide than merely a summary of current figures. It covers the 11 aspects of how these restrictions actually operate in practice that I find most frequently overlooked by borrowers, including the tactical choices you can make when your purchase price is exactly at the threshold. Knowing the guidelines underlying the restrictions gives you a significant advantage when you begin completing paperwork, whether you're pricing out a refinance or looking for a house.
The amount at which a mortgage is no longer suitable for purchase by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, the two government-sponsored organizations that acquire the majority of the nation's conventional loans, is known as the conforming loan limit. This figure is set by the Federal Housing Finance Agency each year, and practically all other loan limits in the housing market are somehow correlated with it.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency states that the baseline conforming loan limit for a single-family home in the majority of U.S. counties is $806,500. This figure establishes whether your loan is jumbo and owned by a private investor or retained on a bank's balance sheet, or conventional and purchased by Fannie or Freddie.
Every year, FHFA uses its expanded-data House Price Index to compute the cap. The baseline limit shifts by the same proportion as the average U.S. home prices between the third quarter of one year and the third quarter of the subsequent year, according to the methodology. The formula was codified into law by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act, therefore the increase is not a matter of policy. It is a statutory calculation that is directly related to changes in housing prices.
In every market we service, AmeriSave generates conforming loans at the FHFA baseline, so when a client inquires about how much house they may purchase, this is typically the first figure I look up. The answer to nearly every follow-up inquiry depends on which side of the limit you fall on if you're even close to it.
One thing that is frequently overlooked is that the cap does not rise annually just because home values have increased. Because national home prices had not yet reached their pre-crisis peak, the baseline conforming loan limit remained unchanged at $417,000 for about ten years following the 2008 housing crisis. The official trigger is FHFA's expanded-data House Price Index, and the organization employs a high-water mark rule, which states that the baseline only rises when the index reaches a new peak. The annual rises started again after the housing market surpassed that peak, and the limit has increased annually ever since then. Although the precise amount follows changes in the property price index rather than borrower demand, buyers who shop close to the threshold can often anticipate a somewhat higher limit in the following cycle.
The single national baseline is a floor, not a ceiling. About 100+ counties across the United States qualify as high-cost areas, where the FHFA raises the conforming limit above the national baseline because local home prices have outpaced it.
For a single-family home in those counties, the high-cost conforming limit goes up to $1,209,750, which is exactly 150% of the baseline. The 150% ceiling is also statutory and applies to the most expensive metros, including the San Francisco Bay Area, the District of Columbia, and Honolulu. Other counties fall somewhere between the baseline and the ceiling based on their local median home value.
Here’s the part borrowers usually miss: the high-cost determination is at the county level, and the county math runs off the local median home value, not the regional one. A borrower buying in Loudoun County, Virginia, gets a different limit than one buying 30 miles south in Spotsylvania County, even though both are technically in the broader D.C. region. Before you assume the national baseline applies, check your specific county’s number. For some buyers, that one research tip moves them from a jumbo loan to a conforming one, and the qualifying picture shifts noticeably.
The mechanics behind the high-cost calculation are worth knowing. FHFA calculates each county’s high-cost limit by taking 115% of the local median home value, then capping the result at 150% of the national baseline. That means a county whose local median home value is right at the cap point of $701,500 gets a high-cost limit of $806,500 plus the adjustment, and counties with median values well above that ceiling all get the same $1,209,750 figure regardless of how much higher their local prices actually run. The framework was set up that way to keep the high-cost program from drifting too far from the national baseline. Counties that fall between the baseline and the ceiling get individualized limits, which means a borrower in a transitional county might see a number that doesn’t match either the baseline or the ceiling exactly.
FHA loans don’t have a single national limit. They have two, both indexed directly to the conforming loan limit. The FHA floor for a single-family home is set at 65% of the conforming baseline, and the FHA ceiling is set at 150% of the conforming baseline. That’s the same dollar figure as the high-cost conforming ceiling.
Run the math on the current numbers and the FHA single-family floor lands at $524,225 in most U.S. counties. The FHA ceiling in the most expensive markets is $1,209,750. Most counties in the country are at the floor, with FHA limits stepping up county by county wherever local home prices justify it.
The structure matters because FHA is one of the most accessible loan programs for borrowers with lower credit scores or smaller down payments. The minimum down payment is 3.5% with a score of 580. If you’re shopping at a price point near the FHA floor and your county’s limit is right at $524,225, every dollar above the limit knocks you out of FHA eligibility for that specific purchase. AmeriSave runs FHA lookups by county before prequalifying borrowers near the threshold, because the conversation changes if the home you want pushes you out of the program.
Two FHA details often surprise borrowers at higher loan amounts. First, FHA loans require mortgage insurance premiums regardless of down payment, and the structure has two pieces: an upfront premium of 1.75% of the loan amount that can be rolled into the loan, and an annual premium charged monthly that ranges from roughly 0.15% to 0.75% of the loan balance depending on loan term, loan-to-value ratio, and loan amount. On a $400,000 FHA loan, the upfront premium alone adds $7,000 to the financed amount. Second, the FHA ceiling in the highest-cost counties is the same dollar figure as the conventional high-cost ceiling. That means FHA can finance a $1.2 million home in places like the San Francisco Bay Area or the New York metro, provided the borrower qualifies. The accessibility of the FHA program at the upper end is what allows owner-occupant buyers in expensive markets to keep using the 3.5% minimum down payment even at million-dollar price points.
This is the single most underused piece of knowledge in the veteran-borrower community: if you have full VA entitlement, there is no loan limit on a VA loan. The Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act removed loan limits for full-entitlement borrowers. The VA still guarantees the loan, but the cap that used to apply was eliminated.
Full entitlement means you’ve never used your VA loan benefit, or you’ve paid off a previous VA loan in full and sold the property, or you’ve had a previous VA loan foreclosure but repaid the VA in full. If any of those describes you, the limit doesn’t apply. You can buy a $1.5 million home with a VA loan at zero down, assuming you qualify on credit, income, and the lender’s overlay rules. That said, most lenders will run their own underwriting at higher loan amounts.
Where the conforming limit still matters for VA borrowers is on partial entitlement, which typically applies if you have an active VA loan on another property. In that case, the VA’s 25% guaranty calculation is anchored to the conforming loan limit in your county, and your remaining entitlement determines how much you can borrow without a down payment. Borrowers using their VA benefit a second time usually walk into this scenario without realizing the rules have changed since their first use.
Two other VA loan details worth knowing if you’re shopping at higher loan amounts; first, the restoration of entitlement process. If you’ve sold a VA-financed home and the loan was paid off in full at the sale, you can request a one-time restoration of entitlement that re-opens full entitlement for a new VA loan. Surviving spouses of veterans killed in service or due to a service-connected disability may also be eligible for VA loan benefits. Second, the VA funding fee. The funding fee on a VA purchase ranges from 1.25% to 3.3% of the loan amount, depending on the down payment percentage and whether it’s your first VA loan use. The fee can be rolled into the loan rather than paid at closing, but it does count against your loan amount for purposes of staying inside the conforming limit if you’re a partial-entitlement borrower. For full-entitlement VA borrowers, the funding fee is just an additional dollar amount on top of the purchase price financing.
USDA loans, formally the Section 502 Guaranteed Loan program, work differently from every other program on this list. There is no formal maximum loan amount. There is, however, a maximum income, and that income cap is the limiting factor for most borrowers.
For the Section 502 Guaranteed program, household income cannot exceed 115% of the area median income for the county where the property sits. For the Section 502 Direct program, the income limits are tighter and target very low to low-income households. Both programs require the property to be in a USDA-designated rural area, and USDA publishes the eligibility maps online for property-specific lookups.
The practical effect is that USDA borrowing power scales with what your debt-to-income ratio supports at current rates, not with a published dollar ceiling. A USDA borrower in a low-cost rural county might qualify for a $250,000 loan; a USDA borrower in a USDA-eligible suburb of a more expensive metro might qualify for $450,000 or more. AmeriSave originates USDA loans in eligible areas, and the question I get most often is whether a specific address is rural enough to qualify. The map check takes 30 seconds and answers that one quickly.
Two structural notes on USDA worth keeping in mind. First, the Section 502 Direct program is a separate USDA loan product administered directly by Rural Development rather than through approved lenders. Direct loans target very low and low income households, with subsidized payment assistance built in, and the income limits are tighter than the 115% threshold used for the Guaranteed program. Most AmeriSave USDA borrowers qualify under the Section 502 Guaranteed program. Second, USDA loans carry an upfront guarantee fee of 1% of the loan amount and an annual fee of 0.35% of the average annual loan balance. Those fees fund the program’s loan guarantee structure, and the upfront fee can be rolled into the loan amount the same way FHA upfront mortgage insurance can. The dollar amount is small enough that it usually doesn’t change qualifying math, but it’s worth knowing about before you sign.
If you’re willing to buy a property with more than one unit and live in one of them, the conforming loan limits go up significantly. The Federal Housing Finance Agency publishes separate limits for 2-, 3-, and 4-unit properties, and the gap between them and the single-family limit is bigger than most buyers realize.
For 2-unit properties in baseline counties, the conforming limit is $1,032,650. For 3-unit, it’s $1,248,150. For 4-unit, it’s $1,551,250. In high-cost counties, those numbers scale up by the same 150% factor that applies to single-family homes, meaning a 4-unit property in a high-cost county can qualify for a conforming loan above $2.3 million.
This is the structural backbone of what real estate investors call house-hacking: you buy a duplex, triplex, or fourplex as an owner-occupant, live in one unit, and rent the others to offset your mortgage payment. FHA also publishes separate higher limits for multi-unit properties, and FHA allows owner-occupants to buy up to four units with the program’s 3.5% minimum down payment. For a borrower with limited cash on hand but rental income potential, the multi-unit conforming and FHA limits open up a financing structure that single-family rules don’t allow. AmeriSave originates owner-occupied multi-unit loans across all four limit tiers.
Two specific FHA rules matter for the 3- and 4-unit path. First, FHA applies a self-sufficiency test: the projected rental income from the non-occupied units, after a vacancy adjustment, must cover the full mortgage payment on a 3- or 4-unit purchase. That test rules out properties whose rent rolls don’t carry their own weight, and it’s the most common reason FHA multi-unit applications get adjusted before closing. Second, FHA requires the buyer to actually occupy one of the units as a primary residence for at least one year. Owner-occupied isn’t a paper designation; the lender will verify it. For conventional financing on multi-unit properties, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both allow rental income from other units to be used in qualifying, typically at 75% of market rent to account for vacancy and management costs. The combination of higher loan limits, the rental income offset, and the lower down payment requirement makes multi-unit owner-occupancy one of the most efficient ways for a first-time buyer to enter a higher-priced market.
Here’s the situation I see all the time. A borrower finds a home they love. The purchase price is $830,000. They have 10% down, which means the loan amount lands around $747,000, well under the conforming limit. So far, so good.
Now imagine the same borrower at a $900,000 purchase price with 10% down. That loan amount is $810,000, which sits $3,500 over the conforming limit in baseline counties. The loan is no longer conforming. It’s jumbo. Different qualifying rules, often a higher down payment requirement, sometimes a higher rate, and a different underwriting box.
The engineering options at that threshold are straightforward, and your loan officer should walk you through all of them before you commit to a structure:
Every borrower’s finances look different, and the right move at the threshold depends on what you’re trying to prioritize: lowest down payment, lowest payment, fastest closing, or most flexibility on credit. There isn’t one universally correct answer. There’s the answer that fits your situation.
To put numbers on it, here’s a worked example. Take that $900,000 purchase with $810,000 financed. At a hypothetical 7.00% conforming rate, the monthly principal and interest payment is roughly $5,390. If the same loan is priced as a jumbo at 7.25%, the monthly payment becomes roughly $5,524, or about $134 per month higher. Over a 30-year term, that adds up to about $48,000 in additional interest. Pulling another $4,000 out of savings to bring the loan to $806,000, just under the conforming threshold, saves roughly $134 per month and keeps the file in the conforming box. That’s the math behind the engineering options. But the same example can flip the other way: if your specific lender’s jumbo program is offering a 6.875% rate on the day you lock and the conforming rate is 7.00%, the jumbo loan actually saves you money even at the higher loan amount. The threshold isn’t automatic anymore, which is why it matters to run both quotes before you make the call.
For most of the last decade, the conventional wisdom on loan limits was simple: stay conforming and you’ll get a lower rate. Jumbo was the more expensive option, reserved for borrowers who couldn’t shrink the loan amount down to the conforming threshold.
That wisdom has been getting tested. In recent years, the spread between jumbo and conforming rates has narrowed significantly, and at several points in the cycle, well-qualified jumbo borrowers have actually been offered rates equal to or slightly below the prevailing conforming rate. The Mortgage Bankers Association tracks the spread weekly, and what used to be a reliable 25-to-50 basis point premium for jumbo has, in some windows, flipped the other direction.
The reason has to do with how each loan moves through the market. Conforming loans get sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, which means lenders price in the guarantee fees that those agencies charge. Jumbo loans, by contrast, are often portfolio products that banks and credit unions keep on their own balance sheets, which means a well-capitalized jumbo borrower with strong reserves can sometimes get a price advantage from a lender that wants the relationship.
For a borrower at the conforming threshold, this means the conforming-versus-jumbo decision isn’t automatic anymore. Ask your loan officer to run both scenarios side by side. The right loan for your file might not be the one the threshold seems to point you toward. It really depends on the borrower’s situation, the lender’s appetite, and what the market is doing on the day you lock.
Two other reasons the jumbo box can come out ahead in the right scenario. Banks and credit unions that hold jumbo loans on their own balance sheets often price relationship-based discounts into their offers, especially for borrowers who already have meaningful deposits or wealth-management accounts with the institution. Those discounts don’t show up in published rate sheets, which is part of why shopping a jumbo loan often produces wider quote variation than shopping a conforming one. The other factor is reserves: jumbo programs typically require six to twelve months of mortgage payments in liquid reserves, and borrowers who can document those reserves comfortably tend to get the best jumbo pricing. If your file has strong reserves and you’re close to the threshold anyway, jumbo can be the more efficient choice. If reserves are tight, the conforming side is usually the cleaner path. Either way, the conversation starts with running both quotes, not assuming one is automatically better.
FHFA announces the new conforming loan limits each November, and the new figures take effect on January 1. HUD publishes the corresponding FHA floor and ceiling shortly after, also effective January 1. VA loan limits adjust in lockstep with the conforming limits for partial-entitlement borrowers.
The practical implication: if you’re in the middle of an application late in the year and your loan amount sits a bit over the current conforming limit, waiting a few weeks for the new limits to take effect can move your file from jumbo back into conforming territory. Some lenders will begin accepting locks at the new limits in mid-to-late December, before the official January 1 effective date, in a practice the industry calls early adoption.
This isn’t a reason to delay closing if you’re comfortable with your current structure. But if you’re right at the line in November or December, asking your loan officer about the early-adoption window can sometimes save you a half-point on rate or shift you into a program with friendlier qualifying rules. It’s a small piece of timing that produces a real result for the borrowers it applies to.
One related point worth knowing: a rate lock taken before the limit change typically stays at the loan size and program you locked. If you locked a jumbo loan in October and the January 1 limit change would have made your loan conforming, the lock doesn’t automatically convert. You’d need to restructure the loan, which usually means re-locking at the new program’s rate. Some lenders offer float-down features that allow you to take advantage of better pricing if rates drop during the lock period; those features sometimes also accommodate program changes, but the specifics vary by lender and loan. Always ask your loan officer how a mid-application limit change interacts with your specific lock terms before assuming the system handles it automatically.
The conforming loan limit isn’t the same in every U.S. territory or non-contiguous state. Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands get a baseline that’s 50% higher than the continental baseline.
That puts the single-family baseline conforming limit in those four territories at $1,209,750, the same dollar figure as the high-cost ceiling in the continental United States. High-cost areas within those states and territories can push the limit further, but every county in Hawaii, for example, starts at $1,209,750 even if local home prices wouldn’t qualify a continental county for high-cost status.
Honolulu County in particular goes higher still, because the local median home value pushes the FHFA county-specific limit above the territorial baseline. FHA limits in those four territories follow the same 50% adjustment to the floor calculation, which gives FHA borrowers in Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, and the USVI noticeably more buying power than the equivalent borrower would have on the mainland. If you’re shopping for a home in one of those markets, the territorial adjustment is worth checking before you assume the national baseline applies.
Two practical notes for borrowers in these markets. First, Hawaii’s real estate market includes a high share of leasehold properties, which carry their own financing nuances beyond the loan limit conversation. Conventional and FHA financing of leasehold homes is allowed when the lease term meets specific minimum-remaining-years thresholds set by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and HUD, but the documentation process is more involved than a fee-simple purchase.
Second, Alaska construction loans on rural properties often involve additional appraisal complexity because comparable sales are harder to identify, and that can affect both the loan limit conversation and the appraisal-based maximum loan amount. The territorial higher baselines help, but they don’t replace the standard appraisal and program eligibility checks. Borrowers in these markets benefit from working with a lender that has originated loans in their specific territory before, because the program-specific differences come up early in the application.
I frequently witness borrowers making the error of assuming that the local limit applies to their particular transaction. Usually, it doesn't. At the county level, HUD releases FHA limitations, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency publishes conforming loan limits. Your limit is independent of the state and metro region in which you reside. The county in which the property is located does.
In markets that span several counties, this is important. Depending on local house value calculations, the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, for instance, has counties near the baseline and others that are closer to mid-tier high-cost classification. The same is true for the metro areas of Atlanta, Nashville, and Denver, where purchases made within the same driving time may put you in counties with much differing conforming limitations.
Check the relevant county limit on the HUD FHA limit page and the FHFA Conforming Loan Limit page before deciding on a purchase price ceiling. Searchable lookup tools by county are published by both agencies. The county-specific figure can be obtained by your AmeriSave loan officer during the prequalification discussion, but being aware of it before you begin shopping will help you create a target purchase range that corresponds with the program you choose to employ.
If you know where to look, the lookup process takes roughly three minutes. The FHFA tool returns the one-, two-, three-, and four-unit conforming limitations side by side after you search by state and then county. FHA-specific floor or ceiling statistics for that county are returned by the HUD FHA lookup, which has the same structure. There are two circumstances to be aware of. First, extra project-level regulations, such as FHA-approved condo project lists and Fannie Mae project review tiers, apply whether you're purchasing a condo or a planned unit development. The lookup is still done by county. There are two distinct checks: the loan limit and the project eligibility. Second, the loan limit is based on the actual property location as recorded in the appraisal and title work, not the mailing address, in the rare instance where a property's address crosses a county border. The title commitment will clear up any doubts you may have, and your loan officer should be raising the issue early on.
Loan limits aren’t glamorous. They’re table stakes: the boundary lines that determine which program your loan goes through, which rules apply to your qualifying picture, and which rates you’re likely to see. But the borrowers who understand them have an edge over the ones who don’t, especially when their purchase price or refinance amount lands close to a threshold.
If you’re shopping at any price point, the moves are the same: check your specific county’s limits, run your numbers against both the conforming and the jumbo box if you’re close, and talk through the multi-unit and high-cost options with a loan officer who knows the local rules. The conforming limit and its FHA, VA, and USDA cousins aren’t arbitrary numbers. They’re decision points, and the borrower who knows where they sit on the map is the one who walks into closing with no surprises. AmeriSave originates across every program covered in this guide, and we’re ready to walk you through the math for your specific situation whenever you’re ready to start.
$806,500 is the current conforming loan limit for a single-family house in most counties in the U.S. For high-cost counties, the cap rises to $1,209,750, or 150% of the baseline. These are limits on the loans that can be bought by Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. FHFA adjusts the cap annually based on movements in the agency’s expanded-data House Price Index. The new number will take effect Jan. 1, after an announcement in late November. In baseline counties, multi-unit conforming limits are higher: $1,032,650 for two-unit homes, $1,248,150 for three-unit properties, and $1,551,250 for four-unit properties. Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands have baseline limits that are 50% higher than the continental United States. AmeriSave can pull the specific county limit during prequalification.
In short, a jumbo loan is any mortgage that exceeds the conforming limit, by any amount. The pricing is different than conforming loans, the qualification requirements are different and often requires a larger down payment.
Note: Jumbo rates aren’t necessarily higher than conforming rates these days. There are some market windows where well-qualified jumbo borrowers are being quoted at or below the current conforming rate.
For a house with a list price of $830,000 and a 10% down payment, your loan amount is $747,000. That's well below the $806,500 baseline conforming maximum. Now, if you buy a $900,000 home and put down the same 10%, you will have a $810,000 loan. That’s $3,500 over the maximum and considered a jumbo loan. Then, just before we close, we take another $10,000 out of savings and the loan is back under the limit. Ask the AmeriSave loan officer working on your file to run both scenarios so you can see the difference in rate and payment for your circumstances.
There is no borrowing limit for fully eligible VA loan borrowers. The Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act eliminated the full-entitlement use cap, allowing qualified veterans to borrow money over the conforming barrier without needing a down payment (subject to lender underwriting).
You are fully eligible if you have paid off and sold an existing VA-financed home, have never used your VA loan benefit, or have completely repaid the VA after a prior foreclosure. The 25% guaranty calculation is based on the conforming loan limit for the county in which the property is located, which is currently $806,500 in baseline counties and $1,209,750 in high-cost counties. This is because borrowers who use their VA benefit a second time often have partial entitlement. AmeriSave makes VA loans for people eligible for full and partial eligibility.
Direct Response: FHA loan limits are based on a percentage of the conforming loan max, HUD says. In most U.S. counties, a single-family home’s FHA floor is $524,225, or 65% of the conforming baseline. The FHA ceiling is $1,209,750 in the most expensive counties, or 150% of the conforming baseline.
Supporting Context: HUD typically releases county-specific FHA limits in late November effective January 1 to coincide with FHFA’s release of conforming limits. Most counties are at the floor, but about 100 counties in the United States qualify for limits over the floor, based on local median property values. For owner-occupant purchasers using FHA financing on multi-unit properties with the program’s 3.5% down payment minimum, FHA also publishes separate, higher limits for 2-, 3-, and 4-unit buildings. AmeriSave may check the exact FHA limit for each county before you prequalify.
Scenario: You’re looking at a $375,000 home in a rural, USDA-eligible area and want to know if your loan amount could be above a USDA cap that is published.
USDA Rural Development USDA’s Section 502 Guaranteed Loan program does not have a maximum loan amount. Your borrowing power isn’t set by a published cash ceiling, but by the income in your household, your debt-to-income ratio, and the appraised value of the property. The real limit on the program is income; a household’s income cannot be more than 115% of the median income of the county. The USDA loan can help the buyer secure the entire purchase price at zero down on a $375,000 home if the income is within the 115% criteria and the DTI ratios are strong. AmeriSave can perform the income check for each individual county and originates USDA loans in eligible markets.
Loan limits are higher in counties where local median property prices are above the national benchmark. The Housing and Economic Recovery Act created the high-cost area structure that allows the FHFA to raise a county’s conforming limit to 150% of the national baseline when housing prices in that county warrant it.
There are currently more than 100 counties eligible for high-cost designation, including most counties in the San Francisco Bay Area, much of the New York metro, the District of Columbia, and Honolulu. Other counties are somewhere between the baseline and the ceiling based on a local median home value calculation. The FHA maximum is capped at the same 150% multiplier and FHA restrictions are raised using the same county math. During the prequalification phase, AmeriSave can pull the FHA limit and the county-specific conforming limit for any property address.
The FHFA issues the updated numbers in late November and conforming loan limits change every January 1. Shortly thereafter, HUD posts the matching FHA limits, effective January 1st.
Note: Some lenders are beginning to take locks at the new limits in mid-to-late December under early-adoption rulemaking. The effective date is still Jan. 1, but the window could be meaningful for those on the edge.
Your loan amount is $4,000 over the current conforming limit and your application is still in process on December 15 Today the file is jumbo. If your lender allows the new limits to be adopted early in late December and the new conforming limit is $10,000 higher than the current limit, your file can become conforming again at the same purchase price. That one shift can change your qualifying box, your rate and sometimes the paperwork you have to turn in. If you are within a few thousand dollars of the existing loan limit in November or December, you will be noticed by an AmeriSave loan officer.
Fact Checked
