Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

Fannie Mae is planning to be less involved in future upper bracket home purchases. Currently, most counties across the U.S., including all of our Kansas City metro counties, have a $417,000 maximum loan amount that Fannie Mae will back. This means if you need a $450,000 loan, you don’t qualify for a conventional loan backed by Fannie Mae and will need to search for a lender willing to deal with this price range loan. That would likely mean higher loan costs, a higher interest rate, etc. Since it doesn’t appear there will be any change to the $417,000 level, it appears our Kansas City real estate market is mostly insulated from the coming changes.

More expensive real estate markets across the country are sure to be effected however. During the mortgage lending crises of the past several years, Fannie Mae stepped in raising the maximum price on loans it would back. This was designed to help stabilize counties with the most fragile and expensive real estate markets (i.e. few lenders around who were willing to make loans on the homes). But now Fannie Mae is reeling things back in by lowering limits back closer to the lowest $417,000 figure. 

While Kansas City appears mostly insulated from these changes, any adverse affect on our delicate national real estate market threatens to have a trickle down effect.  With some reports indicating that national home prices have fallen back to 2002 levels, let’s hope the effects of these changes are minimal here in Kansas City, Johnson County Kansas, Overland Park and the surrounding areas.

Posted by Jason Brown