The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has announced that the 2013 base and "high-cost" or “jumbo” conforming loan limits for first-lien and second-lien loans will remain unchanged from the maximum conforming loan limits for 2012.
Note that loan limits apply to the original loan amount of the mortgage loan, not to its balance at the time of purchase by Fannie Mae, and the loan origination date is the date of the note. For more detailed information about conventional conforming loan limits for 2013, please refer to Fannie Mae’s Lender Letter LL-2012-11 (https://www.fanniemae.com/content/announcement/ll1211.pdf) and Fannie Mae’s Web site here (https://www.fanniemae.com/singlefamily/loan-limits).
Effect on certain high-cost tests
Any time there is a change in the conforming loan limits, the following state high-cost tests can be impacted: California, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and South Carolina. Specifically, the rules governing the applicability of these states’ high-cost tests are determined in part by reference to the then-current conforming loan limits. Note that for both North Carolina and Tennessee, the Fannie Mae conforming loan limits will have no impact on their respective high costs tests.1
As with the year 2012, the applicable loan limits in 2013 for one-unit properties in the states and counties listed below will remain as follows:
California: $417,000 (all counties except as follows)
$463,450: Alpine
$474,950: El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Yolo
$477,250: Nevada
$483,000: Monterey
$520,950: Sonoma
$529,000: Mono
$546,250: San Diego
$561,200: San Luis Obispo
$592,250: Napa
$598,000: Ventura
$625,500: Alameda, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Marin, Orange, San Benito, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz
Dist. of Columbia2: $625,500
Georgia: $417,000 (all counties except Greene County—conforming jumbo loan limit is $515,200)
Indiana: $417,000 (all counties)
Maine: $417,000 (all counties)
New Mexico: $417,000 (all counties)
New York: $417,000 (all counties except as follows)
$625,500: Bronx, Kings, Nassau, New York, Putnam, Queens, Richmond, Rockland, Suffolk, Westchester
South Carolina: $417,000 (all counties)
Texas3: $417,000 (all counties)
Melanie A. Feliciano Esq. is DocMagic Inc.’s chief legal officer and currently serves as editor-in-chief of DocMagic’s electronic compliance newsletter, The Compliance Wizard. She received her JD from the Georgetown University Law Center, and is licensed in California and Texas. She may be reached by phone at (800) 649-1362 or e-mail
[email protected].
Footnotes
1—As there are no changes from 2012, no changes to proprietary or third-party compliance and document preparation systems need to be made.
2—The District of Columbia Home Loan Protection Act of 2002 (the DCHLPA) applies to a loan if, among other things, the principal amount of the loan does not exceed the Fannie Mae conforming limit for a comparably sized dwelling. Because the DocMagic software does not currently capture number of units, in the case of a two- to four-family dwelling, the high-cost test defaults to the highest, or four-unit, conforming loan limit of $1,202,925.
3—The Texas high-cost home law applies to a loan if, among other things, the principal amount of the loan does not exceed one-half of the Fannie Mae conforming loan limit for a single family, two, three- or four-unit dwelling. Because the DocMagic software does not currently capture number of units, in the case of a two- to four-family dwelling, the high-cost test defaults to the highest, or four-unit, conforming loan limit of $801,950.
