The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced on Tuesday that the conforming loan limits for mortgages acquired by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would increase to $510,400 in 2020, an increase of 5.38% over the 2019 limit of $484,350. This will be the fourth straight year that the FHFA has increased the conforming loan limits.
This percentage increase is the same as the average increase of home prices in the U.S. over the last four quarters, according to FHFA’s third quarter 2019 FHFA House Price Index (HPI) report. For the parts of the U.S. where 115 percent of the local median home value exceeds the baseline conforming loan limit, these high-cost areas will have new loan limit “ceiling” amounts set at 150 percent of the baseline loan limit. The new ceiling limit for most one-unit homes located in these high-cost areas will now be $765,600 – or 150 percent of the baseline loan limit of $510,400.
As a result of rising home values, the increase in the baseline loan amount, and the new ceiling loan amount, the maximum conforming loan limit will be higher in 2020 in all but 43 counties or their equivalents in the U.S.
