Are you thinking about purchasing a house that costs more than $400,000? Unless you are planning to make a significant cash down payment on your new home, it is likely that you will need to apply for a jumbo loan. A jumbo loan is simply a home loan for property in the continental United States that exceeds $417,000, whether the funds are used to purchase a new home or to refinance an existing mortgage. For residents of Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, mortgages are not considered to be jumbo loans until they exceed $625,000.
Jumbo loans are simply mortgage loans made for amounts that exceed the limit for conforming home loans, as determined by Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac, government sponsored entities that are the two largest players in the secondary home loan market in the United States. For this reason, jumbo loans are sometimes referred to as nonconforming loans. Jumbo loans exceed the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) underwriting limits. This means that lenders who extend jumbo loans (1) cannot sell the notes to either of the two largest secondary market lenders in the United States are (2) not eligible for default protection from the...