Home prices vary quite a bit from state to state, and even from county to county. This makes having a single conforming loan limit for the entire country difficult – after all, it’s hard to compare home prices in rural Ohio to home prices in Manhattan, one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country. This is why the FHFA has a higher limit for areas it deems to be “high cost,” a designation based on an area’s median home values compared to the baseline conforming loan limit.
The exact conforming loan limit varies depending on the median home value in a given area, up to 150% of the baseline conforming loan limit. To see what the current limit is in your county, use the FHFA’s interactive map.
An Example Of High-Cost Area Limits
To see what this might look like in practice, let’s say you’re considering buying a $800,000 house in California.
If you were to buy that house in San Bernardino County, which isn’t currently listed as an FHFA high-cost area, you’d likely need to take out a jumbo loan, since you’d be exceeding the $766,550 baseline loan limit.
However, Los Angeles County is traditionally one of the most expensive areas in which to buy a house in the U.S. It's at the top end of the scale ($1,149,825 for a single-unit home). You would be able to buy the house without a jumbo loan.
In addition to being the ceiling in high-cost areas, the highest conforming loan figure for a given number of units is also the loan limit in Alaska and Hawaii.
