In an effort to help homeowners, HUD is temporarily changing the FHA loan limits. Effective March 6, 2008, the new FHA loan limits range from $271,050 to $729,750. The new maximum amount of $729,750 will only be available in extremely high-cost metropolitan areas, for comparison, the previous limit in these areas was $362,790. Use this interactive map to view the FHA loan limits in your area.

The temporarily increased FHA loan limits are part of the Economic Stimulus ACT of 2008 and are believed to help provide liquidity and stability in the volatile housing market in the US. These temporary increases are effective until January 2009 and then the limits will decrease to their previous amounts unless the U.S. Congress approves a legislation to permanently increase loan limits.

The new FHA limits will help to provide a mortgage alternative to metropolitan areas that have previously been unable to take advantage of the FHA loans due to astronomical home prices. In the other parts of the country, FHA has been used as a conventional source of mortgage credit and has facilitated more than $38 billion of mortgage activity from September 2007 to December 2007.

These increased limits will provide hope to distressed homeowners and provide an alternative mortgage source for the rest of the country.

Tags: 2008 FHA limits, FHA, FHA loan limits, mortgage, mortgage industry changes, MSA loan limits

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 6:42 pm and is filed under Daily Pick. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.