What is the mortgage loan limit in the Florida Keys for 2026?

Monroe County is the only county in Florida with a federal high-cost designation for 2026. The conforming limit and the FHA limit are both $990,150 for a one-unit property, compared with $832,750 for the rest of Florida. A Keys loan therefore does not become jumbo until it passes $990,150. The FHA reverse mortgage maximum claim amount is $1,249,125 and does not vary by county.

Do Florida Keys homes qualify for a reverse mortgage?

Yes, subject to the usual requirements. The catch is that the HECM maximum claim amount of $1,249,125 does not get the high-cost increase that conforming and FHA limits do, and typical Keys values run near or above that figure. Many Keys homeowners therefore access more equity through a jumbo or proprietary reverse mortgage, which counts the full appraised value.

Can you get a reverse mortgage on a condo in the Florida Keys?

Often yes. A HECM generally requires the condominium project to be FHA approved and many Keys buildings are not. Several proprietary reverse mortgage lenders will lend on condominiums that FHA will not approve, so a building that rules out a HECM may still qualify under a private program.

How do Florida Keys insurance costs affect mortgage qualification?

Wind and flood premiums in Monroe County are among the highest in the country, and on a reverse mortgage they form part of the financial assessment. The lender tests whether you have enough residual income to keep paying taxes, insurance and upkeep for the life of the loan. High Keys premiums can trigger a Life Expectancy Set-Aside, which reserves part of the proceeds to cover those charges.

Which Florida Keys areas do you serve?

The whole chain, from Key Largo, Tavernier, Islamorada, Layton, Long Key and Duck Key through Marathon, Big Pine Key, Summerland, Cudjoe, Sugarloaf and Big Coppitt to Stock Island and Key West. Phil Stevenson lives in Key Largo and commutes to the Miami office two days a week.

Mortgages in the Florida Keys

Phil Stevenson lives in Key Largo. He is a Certified Reverse Mortgage Professional, one of roughly 200 in the United States, and he has been quoted in Forbes three times on reverse mortgage policy. If you are buying, refinancing or releasing equity anywhere from Key Largo to Key West, you can talk to someone who lives on the same rock, understands what your insurance bill looks like, and knows why Keys files get declined on the mainland.

Why the Keys are not like the rest of Florida

Monroe County is the only county in Florida with a federal high-cost designation for 2026. Island geography limits supply, second-home demand is strong, and values sit well above the mainland. That designation changes the numbers in a way most lenders outside the Keys simply get wrong.

What are the 2026 loan limits in the Florida Keys?

Loan type	Monroe County, the Keys	Rest of Florida
Conforming, one unit	$990,150	$832,750
FHA, one unit	$990,150	varies, lower
Conforming, four units	$1,904,150	lower
FHA reverse mortgage (HECM) maximum claim	$1,249,125 nationally, the same everywhere

Two things fall out of that table, and both matter.

In the Keys, FHA and conforming limits are identical at $990,150, because Monroe County hits the ceiling under both programs. And a Keys loan does not become jumbo until it passes $990,150, not $832,750. A file that a mainland lender calls jumbo may be perfectly conforming here, with better pricing, if the person structuring it knows the county designation applies.

Reverse mortgages in the Florida Keys

The HECM limit does not get the high-cost bump. It is $1,249,125 everywhere in 2026. With typical Keys values running near and often above that, a large share of Keys homeowners are exactly the people for whom a standard HECM leaves money on the table.

That makes the Keys one of the strongest markets in Florida for jumbo and proprietary reverse mortgages, which count the full appraised value rather than stopping at the FHA cap, and which carry no FHA mortgage insurance premium. See the reverse mortgage hub for how the two products compare.

Can you get a reverse mortgage on a Keys condo?

Often yes, and this is where local knowledge earns its keep. A HECM generally requires the condominium project to be FHA approved. A great many Keys buildings are not, and getting a project approved is slow. Several proprietary lenders will lend on condominiums FHA will not touch. If you were told no because of your building, that was a HECM answer, not the final answer.

How Keys insurance costs affect what you qualify for

This is the part mainland lenders miss. Wind and flood premiums in Monroe County are among the highest in the country, and on a reverse mortgage those premiums are not a side issue, they are part of the qualification. The financial assessment tests whether you have enough residual income left to keep paying taxes, insurance and upkeep for the life of the loan. A Keys insurance bill can be the single line that triggers a Life Expectancy Set-Aside, which carves out part of your proceeds to cover those charges.

It is workable, and it is far better to know before the appraisal than after. A lender who has never written a Keys file will not raise it with you.

VA loans in the Florida Keys

Naval Air Station Key West means a real veteran population down here. VA financing has no down payment requirement and no monthly mortgage insurance, and since 2020 there is no cap on what the VA will guarantee for a veteran with full entitlement, though individual lenders set their own ceilings and price higher loans differently. Phil is an Iraq and Afghanistan disabled veteran and PS Mortgage Lending is veteran owned. See VA home loans.

Which islands we cover

All of them: Key Largo, Tavernier, Islamorada, Layton, Long Key, Duck Key, Marathon, Big Pine Key, Summerland, Cudjoe, Sugarloaf, Big Coppitt, Stock Island and Key West. Phil lives in Key Largo and commutes to the Miami office two days a week, so a face to face conversation in the Upper Keys is genuinely easy to arrange.

Talk to someone who actually lives here

Phil Stevenson, CRMP, NMLS #365768. PS Mortgage Lending, NMLS #968090. Rated 5.0 across 187 Google reviews. Quoted in Forbes three times as a reverse mortgage expert. Ranked the number one reverse mortgage broker in Florida for 2015, 2016 and 2017 by Reverse Market Insight, top 1% of originators nationally from 2020 to 2022, and named a Top Veteran Loan Originator nationally in 2024 and 2025. Licensed in Florida, Georgia and Texas. Consultations in English and Spanish.

Call (305) 791-4874.