You may have heard about loan limits changing on FHA mortgages starting October 1st. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Shenandoah Valley — at least at this point — will not experience any changes in FHA loan limits. There is a full document on HUD’s website with the counties that will be affected, and neither Harrisonburg nor Rockingham County are on the list.

For those of you who are curious about this impending change, here are some details:

• The FHA (Federal Housing Administration) is home to the largest mortgages the government is willing to back.
• If this change does indeed take place, many home buyers will no longer be able to get reasonable financing. (In Richmond, for example, the loan limit will drop from $300,000 to $271,050.)
• These changes, unlike the MID issue we’ve described previously, don’t affect just higher priced homes, as we can see from the changes taking place in Richmond.
• There is a bill currently in the works called the Conforming Loan Limits Extension Act, which would allow Fannie, Freddie, and the FHA to continue to buy or back mortgages up to the current maximum.

If this change occurs, according to math done by the National Association of Home Builders, roughly 17 million homes would instantly be out of federal backing. We understand that this is supposed to get the nation to move toward a less-government-dependent society, but this may not be the best way to go. It just doesn’t seem like the greatest timing for a monumental change in the housing market to occur.