WASHINGTON (November 28, 2018) – (RealEstateRama) — This morning, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced it will raise the national conforming loan limit for 2019 by 6.9 percent from $453,100 to $484,350. In addition, the high-cost limit will rise from $679,650 to $726,525. As a result, loan limits will be higher in all but 47 counties or county equivalents across the country beginning on January 1, 2019.
The FHFA’s limits define the maximum one unit single-family mortgage amounts that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may finance and are also used to define the loan limits for the Federal Housing Administration’s program. These limits are important for funding home sales in high-cost coastal markets like California, Virginia, and Maryland, but are increasingly important in other markets across like Nashville and Denver, along with those in Utah and Wyoming.
“The National Association of Realtors® is pleased to see the Federal Housing Finance Agency raise its national conforming loan limits for 2019. Today’s decision reflects rising or near record high home prices in many U.S. markets, and the move helps keep the American Dream within reach for countless families working with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Without this assurance that loan limits keep up with home price growth, borrowers across the country risk being pushed out of the market altogether as mortgage rates and rising home prices continue to hold back potential homebuyers,” said NAR President John Smaby, a second-generation Realtor® from Edina, Minnesota and broker at Edina Realty.
Visit the FHFA’s Conforming Loan Limits page(link is external) to view for the new limit in your county.
Each year, the FHFA updates the national and high-cost limits based on the FHFA’s national price index. The market for private financing has improved, but remains hobbled since the Great Recession, requiring more onerous standards of would-be homebuyers who do not possess pristine credit and/or face higher rates than those charged by the Enterprises.
The National Association of Realtors® is America’s largest trade association, representing 1.3 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries.
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Media Contact: Wesley Shaw (202) 383-1193
