The Federal Housing Finance Agency raised the baseline conforming loan limit for GSE mortgages by $29,000 for next year. The new loan limit, announced Nov. 28, is $453,100, and represents just the second time since the 2007 housing downturn that the conforming loan limit has been raised. For 2017, it was increased by $7,100, to $424,100. The baseline loan limit was established by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 and is closely reviewed each year to reflect any changes in the national home price index. In determining maximum loan amount under the terms of HERA, FHFA uses the expanded-data home price index. The expanded-data HPI increased 6.8 percent between the third quarters of 2016 and 2017.