[Critical Loan Limit Update on 11/18/2011] As of today, loan limits for high-cost areas drop from $729,750 to $625,500. Here are new limits and rate spreads between each of the U.S.’s three loan tiers.

Rates were down .25% last week—dropping below 4%—on a surprise Fed announcement that they’d buy mortgage bonds to support housing.

[Critical Loan Limit Update on 11/18/2011] Banks stopped accepting rate locks on high-balance conforming loans to $729,750 in early September because these loans must close before loan limits drop on October 1. Below are new loan limits as of October 1 and approximate rate spreads between each tier:

[Critical Loan Limit Update on 11/18/2011] Congress (80% of which has no background in business or economics according to TheHill.com) is on vacation, putting any talk of extending loan limits on hold, so high-balance conforming loan limits will be cut from $729,750 to $625,500 on October 1. Details here. But there is a rumor about [...]

[Critical Loan Limit Update on 11/18/2011] We appear to be marching toward a reduction in the temporary loan limits, although there are numerous attempts to extend it. HUD weighed in last week with its FHA single-family loan limits which are effective on or after October 1, 2011 through December 31, 2011.

Yesterday’s S&P Case Shiller May report showed home prices across 20 major U.S. metro areas were up 0.6% since April, the second straight monthly gain after seven straight months of decline. But prices are down 4.5% since last May, and prices are down 32.3% from June/July 2006 to May 2011.

Today’s links on loan limits, debt ceiling options, U.S. and Europe’s debt quagmires, Finreg year 1, trading don’ts, and your best source for NFL news.

Five-time Jeopardy winner Rich Cordray will be nominated by President Barack Obama to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He is the former Ohio Attorney General (he lost his bid for re-election last November), and currently the assistant director for enforcement at the bureau. And to round things out, he was a onetime law clerk [...]

Mortgage loans have three rate tiers: (1) lowest rates for conforming loans up to $417,000, (2) .125% to .25% higher than tier 1 for super-conforming loans from $417,000 to $729,750, (3) .125% to .375% higher than tier 2 for jumbo loans above $729,750.