United Wholesale Mortgage is the first major lender this year to raise its conforming loan limits in advance of the formal announcement in November by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Even though UWM will start obtaining loans with these higher limits from mortgage brokers immediately, it will need to keep the mortgages on its balance sheet until Jan. 1 when the yet-to-announced 2026 conforming limits go into effect.
The annual increase in the top loan amount at which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will purchase a mortgage during a given year is in a formula set by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act. The FHFA's own house price index for the third quarter
Lenders who look to give the market a head start for next year can estimate what those changes will be. UWM is among the companies which have
The risk is that if the conforming limit does not rise as much or more than anticipated, the lender will be stuck with those mortgages on its books and when it finds a buyer, will not receive sufficient proceeds from the sale.
Normally, conforming mortgages are priced lower than jumbo loans. Bank lenders have been known to price jumbo mortgages less than their conforming offerings because it sees those as an incentive for high net worth customers.
United Wholesale Mortgage's new loan limits
As of Sept. 16, the average jumbo mortgage rate was 6.42%, while the conforming 30-year fixed was at 6.17%, according to data from the Optimal Blue product and pricing engine.
UWM's early updated mortgage loan limits, effective immediately, are:
· $819,000 one-unit conventional and Veterans Affairs loans (increased from $806,500)
· $1,048,500 two-unit conventional loans (increased from $1,032,650)
· $1,268,000 three-unit conventional loans (increased from $1,248,150)
· $1,575,000 four-unit conventional loans (increased from $1,551,250)
National Mortgage News reached out to the other lenders who have also run similar promotions, in the past but had not received any comments from them at deadline.
Separately, UWM Wednesday extended its promotion, R/T 90 through Oct. 1. It was a 90 basis point incentive on rate and term refinancings which was supposed to end on Sept. 16.
The incentive applied to conventional, jumbo, Federal Housing Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture rate-and-term refinances, along with FHA Streamlines, VA IRRRLs, and VA Type 1 Cash-Outs. IRRRLs are interest-rate reduction refinance loans.
