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The Federal Housing Administration (FHA [2]) announced Friday it will leave loan limits unchanged for the highest- and lowest-cost housing markets in 2015.
For most high-cost housing markets, the maximum allowable amount for an FHA loan will stay at $625,000, a threshold first set at the start of this year.
For low-cost metro areas, the limit will remain unchanged at $271,050, the agency announced.
FHA recalculates its national loan limit every year, basing its math on a percentage calculation of the national conforming loan limit for mortgages eligible for purchase or guarantee by the GSEs. That limit was also left untouched [3] by the Federal Housing Finance Agency and will stay at $417,000 for most of the country next year.
FHA will continue to insure mortgages at a much higher threshold—$938,250—in certain established high-cost areas, including Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, and the Virgin Islands.
The agency also announced that loan limits for FHA-insured reverse mortgages will also be left untouched. FHA's reverse mortgage product, the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) will have a maximum claim amount of $625,500.