Jumbo loan limit 2026, and the piggyback that keeps you under it

You found the house, and it is over the number where people start saying “jumbo.” That usually means you have heard you need 20% down, a perfect file and a higher rate. Sometimes that is true. Often there is a better structure. Here is where the jumbo loan limit sits for 2026, what really changes above it, and three ways to keep your loan under it.

What is the jumbo loan limit for 2026?

The jumbo line is the conforming loan limit: the biggest loan Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will buy, set every year by their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency. At or under it, your loan can be conforming. Above it, it is a jumbo loan.

Every locality in the Richmond area sits at the baseline, $832,750 for one unit. The 2027 limits were not out as of early November 2026.

The limit is about the loan, not the house. With 20% down, $832,750 supports a price of about $1.04 million. Past that, you need more down, a second loan, or a jumbo.

Jumbo vs conforming: what changes above the limit

A conforming loan follows Fannie Mae’s or Freddie Mac’s rules. A jumbo loan follows whatever rules its lender or investor writes, so two jumbo lenders can look at the same file and give different answers. From the jumbo programs lenders have walked me through, the extra rules usually land in the same places:

• Credit. Every borrower needs a score, frozen credit has to be thawed before the pull, and authorized-user accounts may not count toward your credit history.
• Reserves. Several months of payments left in the bank after closing, more on bigger loans, and some programs want more months when the money sits in retirement accounts.
• Debt-to-income. Often tighter than conforming, commonly a cap in the 40s, with a little more room for files with strong reserves.
• Appraisal. Some lenders want a second appraisal on larger loans.
• Assets and history. A gift of equity is often not allowed, and if you have lived rent-free, expect to need a letter from whoever housed you.

Pricing works differently too. On a conforming loan, your debt-to-income ratio only qualifies you: approve or deny, no price tiers. On jumbo it can be approve, deny, penalize. Some jumbo programs move you into a worse price tier at a higher ratio even when you still qualify, and you will never see that ratio on your loan disclosure, only the price. In my 2026 comparisons, conforming has priced better than jumbo for the same buyer, by an amount that moves with the market.

One more word that confuses people. “Non-conforming” just means over the limit. Non-QM is a different category, built for files that do not fit standard documentation, like self-employed borrowers qualifying on bank statements. Non-QM almost never beats QM on price, so a strong earner with a clean file belongs in a regular jumbo or a conforming structure, not non-QM.

Because each lender writes its own jumbo rules, one lender’s “no” is often just its own overlay. That is where a broker earns its keep; see how lenders’ rules differ.

How to avoid a jumbo loan: three ways

1. Put a little more down. If the price is only modestly over, a few extra dollars can bring the loan to the limit. On a $1,050,000 house, 20% down leaves an $840,000 loan, $7,250 over. Bring $217,250 instead of $210,000 and the loan is $832,750, conforming. When the gap is that small, you might as well spend the extra.

2. Use a piggyback. Keep the first mortgage at or under the limit and put a second loan behind it at closing. This is the one that changes the math on bigger gaps, and it gets its own section below.

3. Let a low appraisal help. A low appraisal is usually bad news, but on a jumbo it can flip the loan. If the price resets to a lower value, the same down payment may now leave a loan under the limit, which can move the file to conventional and usually better pricing. Switching programs midstream works when there is runway and the appraisal does not have to be reordered. More on that in what to do when an appraisal comes in low.

How a piggyback loan works: my Jumbo Buster

A piggyback is two loans on the same house, closed together. The first mortgage stays at or under the conforming limit and at or under 80% of the price. A second lien, often a home equity line of credit, covers the gap between your down payment and that first loan. I call this structure the Jumbo Buster: no jumbo loan, no 20% cash requirement, and no mortgage insurance on the first, because the first is at 80% of the price or less.

Compare the single-loan options on the same house. With 20% down, the loan is $880,000, a jumbo. To stay conforming with one loan, you would need $267,250 down, a little over 24%. The piggyback gets you there with $110,000.

How low the down payment can go depends on the second-lien lender, which sets its own cap on the combined loan. I check that cap for your file before we write the offer around it.

Here is the payment, shown the way I show every piggyback: three numbers, so nothing hides.

The trade-offs, stated plainly:

• The line’s rate floats. Most lines run at prime plus a margin. On a $157,250 balance, every 1-point move in the rate changes that payment by about $131 a month.
• Interest only is a floor, not a plan. The minimum never pays the balance down. Pay extra, or pay it off when the money arrives. How draw periods and repayment work is on the HELOC page.
• The first mortgage may cost a little more. A second lien behind it usually adds a pricing adjustment to the first, so I price the file both ways.
• Virginia taxes the second deed of trust too. For a credit line, the recordation tax is figured on the line’s maximum amount, not what you draw: about $333 per $100,000 of line at the state rate plus the local one-third most localities add. On the $157,250 line above, that is about $524. Some line lenders cover closing costs up front and take them back if you close the line within a set window.
• Plan on a full appraisal. Fannie Mae does not offer its appraisal waiver at a price or value of $1,000,000 or more, so a piggyback on a home at that level gets a full appraisal.
• Two lenders have to close together. In my files the line takes about three weeks to approve, so I plan these on a normal 30-day close. A rushed three-week contract is the wrong place to try one.

The same shape works under the limit, to skip mortgage insurance instead of a jumbo. That version is usually called an 80-10-10 or 80-15-5, named for the first loan, the second loan and the down payment. Whether it beats paying PMI on a single loan depends on the line’s rate and how fast you will pay it down.

Jumbo to conforming refinance

If you already have a jumbo loan, two things can pull it under the line: your balance paying down, and the limit rising (it went up $26,250 from 2025 to 2026). Once the loan you need fits under the limit, or a principal paydown gets it there, a refinance into a conforming loan may price better and come with the easier conforming rules.

Run it like any other refinance: total cost divided by the monthly savings, in months, then compare that to how long you will keep the loan. The full method, with what counts as cost and what does not, is in when refinancing makes sense.

Doctor loans: a lender product, not a program

Some lenders offer physician loans, usually for medical, dental and certain other doctoral degrees, sometimes including residents and fellows. The common thread is little or nothing down and no mortgage insurance, which is paid for with a somewhat higher rate. Many of them lend well above the conforming limit.

They are each lender’s own product, not a government program, so the terms change by lender and by year: eligible degrees, minimum scores, maximum loan sizes, the states they lend in, how student loans in deferment are counted, and condo rules. They are usually for a primary residence only. If you qualify for one, it belongs in the comparison next to a conforming loan and a piggyback. It is not automatically the winner.

At the very top of the market, every option gets narrower. Fewer lenders play, loan-to-value limits tighten, and the right structure is case by case.

If your price is near or over $1 million, the cheapest structure is usually settled before you write the offer, not after. Run the one-loan, more-down and piggyback versions side by side while you still have time to choose.