Same $1M House, Different Down Payment by County

Published 2026-11-08 · eLoanTree Blog

Same house. Same price: $1,000,000. But the answer to "Can I buy it with an FHA loan?" depends entirely on the county. In one county, the down payment is $35,000. In another county, for the very same house at the very same price, it is $458,713.

That is not a trick of interest rates or credit scores. It is the FHA loan limit — the maximum loan the Federal Housing Administration will insure in that county. The limit caps the loan amount, not the purchase price. So when the limit is low, the buyer must make up the difference in cash.

1. The same house, two very different answers

Imagine the same $1,000,000 house, sold twice: once in a county where the FHA limit is high, and once in a county where it is low. The house does not change. The price does not change. The buyer does not change. Only the county changes — and the down payment changes by more than $400,000.

That happens because an FHA loan limit is a cap on the loan, not on the price. If the loan you need is above your county's limit, you cannot simply borrow more. You must pay the gap yourself, in cash, as a larger down payment. The bigger the gap between the loan you need and the limit, the bigger the cash you need.

With a credit score of 580 or higher, FHA allows 3.5% down, under HUD Handbook 4000.1. That is the starting point for the math in this article — but as the next sections show, 3.5% down is only the answer where the limit allows it.

2. The 2026 FHA limits: floor and ceiling

For case numbers assigned on or after January 1, 2026, the one-unit FHA loan limits run from a $541,287 floor in low-cost areas to a $1,249,125 ceiling in high-cost areas, according to HUD Mortgagee Letter 2025-23, dated December 11, 2025.

The floor is 65% of the national conforming loan limit of $832,750 for a one-unit property, as set by the Federal Housing Finance Agency for 2026. The ceiling is 150% of that conforming limit. Most counties fall at or near the floor. Only high-cost counties are higher — and which counties are "high-cost" is decided county by county, not by state.

That county-by-county rule is the whole point of this article. Two counties in the same state, a short drive apart, can have limits more than $700,000 apart. The state does not decide. The county does.

3. In a ceiling county: $35,000 down

Start with the standard FHA math. A $1,000,000 house with 3.5% down means a down payment of $35,000 and a loan of $965,000: $1,000,000 × 3.5% = $35,000 down; $1,000,000 − $35,000 = $965,000 loan.

In a ceiling county, the 2026 limit is $1,249,125. The $965,000 loan is below that limit, so it fits — with $284,125 of room to spare. The 3.5% down payment works exactly as advertised.

That is the case most buyers picture when they hear "FHA, 3.5% down." It is a real case. It is just not the case everywhere.

4. In a floor county: $458,713 down

Now take the same house to a floor county, where the 2026 limit is $541,287. The loan the buyer needs is still $965,000. But the FHA will only insure a loan up to $541,287 there. The loan does not fit, and the shortfall cannot be borrowed.

The buyer must cover it in cash. The minimum down payment becomes the price minus the limit: $1,000,000 − $541,287 = $458,713. That is 45.9% of the purchase price, in cash, before closing costs.

At that point, FHA effectively does not work for this house in this county. A buyer with $458,713 in cash would not need a 3.5%-down loan, and a buyer counting on 3.5% down does not have $458,713. The same house, the same price — a completely different answer.

The figures in this article are the article's own calculation from HUD's limits: $1,000,000 × 3.5% = $35,000 down, $965,000 loan; $965,000 is below the $1,249,125 ceiling, so it fits in ceiling counties; $1,000,000 − $541,287 = $458,713 minimum down in floor counties.

5. Which California counties are which

California shows how wide the gap is inside a single state. For 2026, the $1,249,125 ceiling applies to 10 California counties: Los Angeles, Orange, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Santa Cruz, and San Benito. In those counties, the $35,000 down payment on a $1,000,000 house works.

In between are San Diego at $1,104,000, Ventura at $1,035,000, and Sacramento at $764,750. In San Diego and Ventura, the $965,000 loan still fits under the limit, so 3.5% down still works. In Sacramento, it does not: the $965,000 loan is above the $764,750 limit, so the minimum down payment there is $1,000,000 − $764,750 = $235,250.

Most other California counties, including Fresno, are at the $541,287 floor — where the minimum down payment on this house is $458,713. County figures from HUD's FHA Mortgage Limits lookup, calendar year 2026, mortgage maximums as of January 1, 2026.

Do not guess from the state or from a nearby county. A county line can be the difference between $35,000 and $458,713. Look up the exact county where the house sits.

6. The $1.3M case — and what to check before you shop

The same logic explains a harder case. On a $1,300,000 home, 3.5% down means a $45,500 down payment and a $1,254,500 loan. That loan is $5,375 above even the $1,249,125 high-cost ceiling, so 3.5% down does not work anywhere — not even in a ceiling county. In a high-cost county the minimum down payment on that home is $50,875 (3.9%): $1,300,000 minus the $1,249,125 ceiling. In most counties, where the floor is $541,287, the minimum down payment on a $1,300,000 home is $758,713.

So the question "Can you buy a $1M house with FHA?" has no answer until you add the county. Before you shop, check three things: your county's limit on HUD's FHA Mortgage Limits lookup, whether your credit score meets the 580 threshold for 3.5% down under HUD Handbook 4000.1, and whether your lender requires more than the FHA minimum — many lenders require a score of 620 or higher. Then do the subtraction: price minus limit is the smallest cash down payment FHA allows in that county. If that number is more than you have, the house does not fit FHA in that county, no matter how good the price looks.