The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced that, except for 18 counties in which high-cost area loan limits have increased, the 2014 maximum conforming loan limits for first-lien and second-lien loans will remain unchanged from the maximum conforming loan limits for 2013. For more detailed information about conventional conforming loan limits for 2014, please refer to Fannie Mae’s Lender Letter LL-2013-09 and Fannie Mae’s Web site here.
Effect on certain high-cost tests
Anytime 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
Except for the addition of Dutchess and Orange Counties to New York’s high-cost area conforming loan limit of $625,500, the applicable loan limits in 2014 for one-unit properties in the states and counties listed below will remain at $417,000, unless noted below:
California
$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
District of Columbia: $625,500
Georgia-Greene County: Conforming jumbo loan limit is $515,200
New York
$625,500: Bronx, Dutchess, Kings, Nassau, New York, Orange, Putnam, Queens, Richmond, Rockland, Suffolk & Westchester
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].
This article originally appeared in the February 2014 issue of National Mortgage Professional Magazine.
Footnote
1—The North Carolina High-Cost Home Loan Law applies to a loan if, among other things, the principal amount (or the maximum credit limit in the case of an open-end loan) of the loan does not exceed the lesser of $300,000, or the Fannie Mae conforming loan limit for a single-family dwelling. The Tennessee Home Loan Protection Act applies to a loan if, among other things, the principal amount of the loan does not exceed the lesser of $350,000, or the Fannie Mae conforming loan limit for a single-family dwelling.
