While the FHA loan limits have increased to $365,000 in the Twin Cities, the Feds did not see to it to raise the conforming loan limits for the Twin Cities. There’s a formula that’s involved in determining who gets the new conforming loan limits and because the overall median sales price in the Twin Cities metro is so low, they will not be raising the limits here. Here are the new temporary jumbo loan limits by region.
In other words, if you were waiting for the government to help bail this market out, it’s not going to happen.
Despite the fact that we have many parts of the metro where median and average home prices are significantly higher than much of the U.S. (Medina, and the Lake Minnetonka area including the cities of Wayzata, Orono etc), we are still considered “flyover country” here in the Twin Cities and thus we don’t hit the radar screen of those in Washington DC, NY and LA. Conforming loan limits here will remain at $417,000.
It reminds me of the George Orwell book, Animal Farm where “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”