[quote=walterwhite]after all this effort to prop up the housing market, doesn’t it just seem like there has to be a catch; like, we’ll lower the limit, but give you a tax credit for the difference, or these are the new rules, but if we begin to notice it has any bad effect, we’ll immediately revoke them and go back where we were, or some other freaky shenanigans.[/quote]

I think the lower conforming limits will stick without a catch. There’s just not a lot of political support for high conforming limits, and now that Fannie/Freddie are owned by We the People, this is a political issue. The median house price in the U.S. is only ~$150K currently (and it’s ~$300K in San Diego County) . There’s very little political will to help out that ~5% of folks who are buying a $680K+ home. Nor should there be.