Jumbo loans: above the limit, desk by desk.
Past the conforming line there is no agency rulebook. Every jumbo desk writes its own, and the differences are the opportunity.
Loan size past the county limit moves you to jumbo desks.
Income, assets, reserves. Jumbo desks read everything.
We place the file where its strengths price strongest.
In short
Key takeaways
- The conforming limit is $832,750 for a one-unit property in most counties in 2026; high-cost counties carry a higher limit. One dollar above your county’s line makes the loan jumbo.
- Reserves are the real gate, not the down payment: typical desks ask for 6 to 18 months of full PITIA documented after closing as of mid-2026, and the ask grows with the balance.
- 10% down jumbo exists for strong files; 20% opens most of the field. Below 20% there is no PMI system, so the desk prices the risk into your terms instead.
- With no agency rulebook, jumbo quotes spread wider desk to desk than conforming ever does. Shopping one postured file across many desks is where a broker earns the fee.
Written and reviewed by the Intel Loans, Inc. lending team · NMLS #2858705Updated July 2026
What this desk looks at
A jumbo decline is rarely about the borrower. It is about one desk's rulebook. The next desk wrote a different one.
Six to eighteen months is the spread that separates desks.
Higher floors than agency, and tradeline history matters.
Larger loans can require a second appraisal.
Ratios are personal here. Compensating strength gets read.
Crossing it
What changes when you cross the line
No agency rulebook means every requirement below is a posture, not a statute. These are the typical ranges across the desks we broker to as of mid-2026, and any single desk sits somewhere specific inside them.
Read the reserves row twice. Buyers plan for the down payment, but reserves are the gate that actually swings: 6 to 18 months of full PITIA documented in your accounts after closing, seasoned for 60 days at most desks. Retirement accounts usually count at a haircut, commonly 60 to 70% of the balance.
Documentation runs fuller too. Prime jumbo desks want two years of complete tax returns with every schedule, plus every page of every asset statement, and large deposits get sourced line by line. On bigger balances many desks order a second appraisal, and the lower of the two values usually carries.
| Conforming | Jumbo | |
|---|---|---|
| Loan limit | Up to $832,750 on one unit in 2026; higher in high-cost counties | Any amount above your county's limit |
| Underwriting rulebook | Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guidelines, identical at every lender | Each desk's own credit box; no two match |
| Typical down payment | 3 to 5% minimums exist on primary homes | 10 to 20% as of mid-2026; larger balances and second homes push it up |
| Reserves | 0 to 6 months; sometimes none is asked | 6 to 18 months of PITIA, documented after closing |
| DTI posture | Automated underwriting; the caps are published | Tighter and manually reviewed; desks want margin left in the ratio |
| Appraisals | One, with waivers sometimes available | One, and commonly a second on larger balances |
| Mortgage insurance | PMI required below 20% down | PMI does not exist here; the desk prices the risk or splits the loan with a second lien |
Two jumbo families
Prime jumbo and non-QM jumbo, one intake
Prime jumbo is the full-doc path for the strongest files: documented income and deep credit, priced tighter than anything else above the line. Desks reserve it for two years of clean returns and credit in the 720s and up. If your returns show the income, run this route first.
Non-QM jumbo exists because buyers at this price point are disproportionately self-employed, and returns optimized by a good CPA undersell exactly those files. A bank statement loan runs the same jumbo balance on 12 or 24 months of deposits instead. An investor buying above the line can qualify on the property’s own rent through DSCR math, with no personal income in the file.
There is also a path where the portfolio itself qualifies: asset qualifier programs convert documented liquid assets into qualifying income, built for retired buyers and founders between liquidity events. All of it comes through one intake. You describe how you earn, and we pick the documentation path before any desk sees the file.
| Prime jumbo (full doc) | Non-QM jumbo (expanded) | |
|---|---|---|
| Income documentation | Two years of complete tax returns plus verified employment | 12 or 24 months of deposits, the property's rent (DSCR), asset qualifier, or asset depletion |
| Credit posture | 720 and up is where most desks start; the strongest terms sit above 740 | Floors around 660 to 680; the score sets the LTV ceiling |
| Who fits | W-2 earners and filers whose returns show the full income | Self-employed borrowers and investors whose returns undersell the cash flow |
| Reserve expectations | 6 to 12 months of PITIA is the common ask | 12 to 18 months; the desk buys certainty with your liquidity |
| Terms posture | The tightest pricing above the line, for near-perfect files | Wider desk-to-desk spread; structure and compensating factors move the quote |
Pricing mechanics
Pricing without a rulebook, and what a jumbo adds
Conforming pricing converges because every lender sells into the same agency machine. Jumbo has no machine to converge into. A private-bank desk will discount when you move assets under its roof; a wholesale desk prices the identical file straight off its grid, and the spread between those two quotes runs wider than anything conforming shows you.
That spread is the argument for brokering a jumbo instead of walking into one bank. We posture the file once and place it in front of multiple desks, then line the quotes up against each other. No figures on this page, deliberately: advertising a number that may not exist at closing is misleading, and staleness would make it a lie by the weekend anyway.
A jumbo above the line adds two frictions wherever the property sits. On a condo tower the building gets underwritten alongside you. Project review reads the association’s budget and insurance; on older or coastal structures it pulls milestone inspection paperwork and asks about open litigation, and a building that fails moves the loan to non-warrantable condo programs, a smaller desk pool with its own postures.
The second friction is insurance. Wind, flood, and hazard coverage on a large home sit inside PITIA, and reserves are counted in months of PITIA, so every dollar of premium multiplies through the reserve requirement. Price the policy before you write the offer. In high-premium coastal markets the effect is sharpest; our Florida insurance guide walks through how lenders read a hard-market policy.
Insurance multiplies through reserves
A coastal policy running $2,000 a month does more than raise the payment. At a 12-month reserve requirement it adds $24,000 to the liquidity you must document after closing. On large files in hard insurance markets the coverage quote is underwriting, not paperwork.
Worked example
A Coral Gables purchase at $1.6 million
Hypothetical example for illustration only, not a quote or an offer. A buyer purchases a Coral Gables home for $1,600,000 with 20% down, and the quote under review carries a monthly PITIA of $9,800 with taxes and insurance included.
Everyone plans for the $320,000. The $117,600 is what stalls files, because it has to be documented liquidity still sitting in your accounts after the closing wire clears. At this balance some desks also order a second appraisal, so the contract timeline should assume one. A file shaped like this draws three different postures from three desks: one leans on the reserve cushion, one on credit depth, one on the property itself. Which desk wins is not knowable from the outside, and signing before you have seen the spread means paying for the desk you happened to walk into.
The honest part
What a jumbo loan costs you
Under the line is usually the better deal. If the loan can land at or below $832,750, conforming pricing and 3 to 5% down options generally beat any jumbo posture. A conforming first at the limit plus a HELOC second can keep a purchase just above the line out of jumbo entirely. We price both structures on every file near the line; the split usually wins when the second lien stays under $150,000.
The reserve requirement is money you cannot spend. 6 to 18 months of PITIA sits documented in your accounts after closing, on top of the down payment and on top of your closing costs, transfer and doc-stamp taxes included where the state levies them. On the worked example above, that is $117,600 idling while the loan runs. It is the most common reason otherwise strong jumbo files die.
Non-QM jumbo costs more than prime jumbo. The alt-doc paths carry a pricing premium over full doc at the same balance, and the reserve ask usually runs deeper, 12 to 18 months against the prime path’s 6 to 12. If your returns can carry full-doc qualifying, that route is cheaper and we will say so after reading them. A second appraisal, when the balance triggers one, is also a second invoice and another week on the clock.
How jumbo compares
Above the line, guidelines are a market, not a rule.
Reserves and clean credit buy real pricing room.
Self-employed jumbo files can ride bank-statement math.
From scenario to clear-to-close
Build the file once, then make the desks compete.
Send the purchase price, the county, your credit range, and how you earn. We shape one file for the jumbo desks that fit it and send back every desk’s posture in one document.
Send the scenario
Purchase price, county, down payment plan, and how your income documents. No hard credit pull to scope a jumbo; the first pass runs on numbers you already know.
Pick the documentation path
Full doc if your returns carry the income, deposits or rent math if they don't. We run the paths against each other before choosing, because the choice moves your terms.
We shop the jumbo desks
Bank portfolio desks and wholesale desks read the same file with different grids. We collect the competing postures, pulled the same day, and show you the spread.
Appraisal, reserves, clear-to-close
Appraisals get ordered early, two of them if the balance triggers it. Reserve documentation is assembled once instead of drip-fed, and from there the file runs like any other mortgage, with more paper.
Adjacent moves
If this isn’t quite your file
Questions we actually get
What makes a mortgage jumbo?
Any loan amount above your county’s conforming limit. For 2026 that baseline limit is $832,750 for a one-unit property in most counties; high-cost counties carry a higher figure, up to a national ceiling of $1,249,125. The FHFA resets the line each November, so it moves annually. Confirm the current number for your county with your loan officer before you write a contract near it.
Can I put 10% down on a jumbo loan?
10% down jumbo programs exist across the desks we broker to as of mid-2026, typically for strong-credit primary residences. The trade shows up elsewhere in the file: reserve requirements climb and pricing moves against you, while 20% down widens the desk pool and drops you a pricing tier. On many files the binding constraint is not the down payment at all; it is whether 12 months of PITIA survives in your accounts after closing.
Why would a lender order two appraisals?
Above the conforming line no agency buys the loan, so the lender carries the valuation risk itself, and on larger balances many desks self-insure with a second opinion. Each desk writes its own trigger into its guidelines rather than following a shared rule. When two reports come in, underwriting typically works from the lower value, and reconciling them can add days. We flag the trigger when we posture your file so the contract timeline accounts for it.
I'm self-employed. Can I get a jumbo loan without tax returns?
Bank statement jumbo qualifies the same balance on 12 or 24 months of deposits, with an expense factor applied to business accounts; the full mechanics are on our bank statement loan page. Expect deeper reserves than the prime path and a pricing premium over full doc. If your returns can actually carry the income, full doc is cheaper, and we read them before deciding which file to build.
Can I get a jumbo loan on a condo?
Yes, and the building gets underwritten alongside you regardless of loan size. Project review reads the association’s budget and insurance, plus milestone inspection paperwork on older coastal towers and any open litigation. A building that fails review is not the end of the loan; it moves you to non-warrantable condo programs, where a smaller pool of desks prices the building’s risk directly. On a tower unit, ask about the building before you fall for the view.
How do points and pricing work on a jumbo if you won't print a rate?
Structurally, the same as anywhere: each desk publishes a grid, and your file lands in a cell set by LTV, credit, balance, and property type. Points then buy the quote up or down from that cell. What changes above the line is the spread, because no agency machine forces desks to converge, and two of them can read the identical file and land meaningfully apart. We keep printed figures off this page, and staleness would make them worthless anyway; the comparison that matters is competing quotes pulled the same day, which is what we produce.
Make the jumbo desks compete for your file.
One scenario, many desks. Tell us the price and the county, and we send back the competing jumbo postures side by side, in writing.
This is not a commitment to lend or an offer of credit. All loan approvals are subject to credit review, underwriting, and property evaluation. Programs, terms, and conditions are subject to change without notice.
Intel Loans, Inc., NMLS #2858705. Licensed in Florida. Verify our licensing at nmlsconsumeraccess.org. Equal Housing Opportunity.
Worked examples on this page are hypothetical illustrations for education, not quotes or offers. Your figures, including taxes, insurance, and payment amounts, will differ.
Conforming loan limits are set annually by the FHFA and vary by county; confirm the current limit for your county with your loan officer.