I also take sdrealtor’s side on this. First off, most people at those price levels are not first-time buyers, so down payments are not necessarily a huge hurdle (think middle age professionals who have substantial equity in their present house). Getting rid of the present house may actually be more of an issue.
Second, I would think many prospective buyers waiting to take a 600K loan in the past few months have decided to wait for the new jumbo conforming limit to take effect. Why rush into a higher interest rate loan when you know chances are it will be half a percent to one percent lower in a few months? To be honest, I was surprised that there were ANY of these loans made at all in the past few months, once it became obvious the limit would be raised. So I think there will certainly be an immediate impact on the transaction volume in the 700K-1M market.
