Nashville, TN Mortgage Broker

Three things make Nashville lending different from the suburbs around it: a conforming loan limit nearly $200,000 above the national baseline, a condo market where the financing rules changed materially in 2026, and a short-term rental market with one permit rule that quietly kills deals at closing. This page is about those three things.

Nashville by the numbers

The loan limit almost nobody uses correctly

Nashville is a federally designated high-cost area, which creates three financing tiers instead of the usual two. Most buyers here only know about two of them.

That middle band exists only because Nashville is high-cost. A buyer in Knoxville or Chattanooga has no such tier — they go straight from $832,750 into jumbo. If you are buying in Green Hills, Belle Meade, 12South or the upper end of East Nashville and someone has quoted you a jumbo loan on a $900,000 purchase, get a second opinion. That is very likely a high-balance conforming loan and it should be priced like one.

And the FHA number surprises almost everyone: the 2026 FHA limit in Davidson County is also $1,029,250. FHA in Nashville goes to just over a million dollars with 3.5% down. Most buyers assume FHA is a starter-home program capped somewhere in the $500,000s — that is the national floor, and it does not apply here.

Loan programs that fit Nashville

• Conventional — 3% to 5% down. To $832,750 standard, then high-balance to $1,029,250.
• FHA — 3.5% down, to $1,029,250. Genuinely useful at price points where people assume it is unavailable. The constraint downtown is not the loan limit, it is condo approval — see below.
• VA — $0 down. No monthly mortgage insurance, and no loan limit at all for borrowers with full entitlement.
• Jumbo. Above $1,029,250. Belle Meade is effectively a jumbo-only market; parts of Green Hills and Forest Hills cross the line regularly.
• THDA Great Choice. The acquisition cost cap rose from $400,000 to $500,000 in May 2026, with Davidson County income limits of $139,320 for one to two people and $162,540 for three or more. That change matters: against a $480,590 county median, THDA now reaches more than half of what actually sells in Davidson County. A year ago it did not.
• Non-warrantable condo and DSCR programs. For buildings and investment properties that agency guidelines will not take.

USDA is not an option inside Davidson County. The whole urbanized area is excluded from the program regardless of your income. If $0 down is the priority, VA is the path if you are eligible, and outlying parts of the surrounding counties are where USDA becomes possible.

What it actually takes to get into a home in Nashville

Run against the Davidson County median sale price of $480,590. These are down payments only — closing costs are separate, though in a market running at 97.8% of list, seller credits are more available than they have been in years.

Illustrative only, based on the median sale price shown above. Your actual figures depend on the purchase price, your credit profile, the property, and the program. This is not a commitment to lend.

Condos: the 2026 rules changed, and Nashville felt it

Nashville is unusually condo-heavy — downtown, the Gulch, Midtown, Germantown, plus hundreds of small converted regimes across East Nashville and The Nations. In 2026 the agency rules governing condo lending tightened, and it is now the most common reason a Nashville deal falls apart for reasons that have nothing to do with the borrower.

Limited Review is gone. The abbreviated project review that used to let a well-qualified buyer with a decent down payment skip most of the association paperwork no longer exists in Fannie Mae's guide. Nearly every conventional condo loan in a project of meaningful size now requires a Full Review: the association's budget, verification that replacement reserves are funded at a minimum of 10% of the annual budget, insurance certificates, litigation disclosure, and confirmation that no more than 15% of units are 60 or more days delinquent on assessments.

Practically, that means the HOA's paperwork now decides whether your loan closes, and HOAs vary enormously in how fast and how completely they respond. Build the timeline for it.

Small projects are the exception. Project review is waived entirely for two to four unit condo projects, and for five to ten unit projects that are not part of a larger development or master association. That is a meaningful carve-out in Nashville specifically, because so much of the boutique conversion stock in East Nashville, Germantown and The Nations falls inside it.

If you are using FHA downtown, read this twice. Of eighteen tracked downtown Nashville condo buildings, only two — 505 Nashville and City Lights — are FHA approved. An FHA buyer downtown has almost no inventory to choose from. That is not a reason to give up, but it is a reason to know the list before you tour, rather than after you have written an offer.

Common reasons a Nashville building goes non-warrantable: owner-occupancy below roughly 50%, which is very common in buildings with heavy investor and short-term rental ownership; a single entity owning too large a share of units; pending litigation against the association; incomplete construction or a developer still controlling the HOA; and too much commercial space, which catches Nashville's mixed-use towers with hotel and retail podiums. Those buildings are still financeable — through portfolio and non-QM programs, typically at 10% to 25% down with no mortgage insurance — but they are not agency loans and should not be priced like one.

Short-term rentals: the rule that kills deals at closing

If you are buying an investment property in Nashville with short-term rental income in the plan, there is one fact that matters more than the rate:

Nashville short-term rental permits do not transfer with the property. When an STR-permitted home changes hands, the existing permit is cancelled and the new owner has to apply for their own — and that includes transferring the property into your own LLC or trust.

Why that is expensive: non-owner-occupied STR permits are only issued in commercial and mixed-use zoning districts. New non-owner-occupied permits are not issued in Nashville's residential zones. Existing permits in those zones can be renewed by the current owner, but they cannot be transferred. So a residentially zoned house currently running as a profitable Airbnb may simply stop being one the day you close.

What follows from that for financing:

• You cannot underwrite to the seller's revenue. Their booking history is not your income if the permit does not survive the sale. Any pro forma built on it is not bankable.
• DSCR loans are the right tool, underwritten conservatively. A DSCR loan qualifies on the property's cash flow rather than your tax returns. In Nashville specifically, the defensible approach is to qualify on long-term market rent unless the permit path for your ownership is genuinely clear.
• Owner-occupied STR permits require a natural person. They cannot be held by an LLC, corporation, trust or partnership, and the owner must permanently reside at the property. Putting title in an entity cancels the permit outright. Entity structure and financing structure have to be decided together, before you are under contract.
• Do not let anyone call an STR a second home. A property marketed and operated as a short-term rental generally cannot be financed as a second home. Occupancy misrepresentation is loan fraud, not a technicality, and it is a live risk in a market with this many out-of-state buyers.
• HOA and condo documents override zoning. Even where Metro Codes would allow it, the building's bylaws may prohibit short-term rentals — and heavy STR use is itself a warrantability problem for everyone else in the building.

Neighborhoods, and where the loan tiers fall

Nashville has real neighborhood identity and a very wide price spread, which means the right loan structure varies more here than anywhere else we lend.

Standard conforming, FHA and THDA territory:

• Antioch
• Madison
• Old Hickory
• Hermitage
• Donelson
• Priest Lake
• Bellevue
• Whites Creek
• Inglewood

Mid tier, occasionally crossing into high-balance:

• East Nashville
• Sylvan Park
• The Nations
• Germantown
• Wedgewood-Houston
• Berry Hill
• West Nashville

High-balance and jumbo territory:

• Green Hills
• Belle Meade
• Forest Hills
• 12South
• The Gulch
• Downtown high-rise

Not on the list? It does not matter — these are just the ones that come up most. We lend on any residential property in Nashville and throughout Davidson County.

Who is hiring here

Nashville's economy is anchored by healthcare more than by music. It is the national headquarters cluster for for-profit hospital management, and the largest employers reflect that:

Headcounts are approximate and compiled from published employer rankings of varying vintage.

Tennessee has no state income tax, which continues to drive relocation demand and is worth factoring into an affordability comparison if you are moving from a state that does.

Refinancing in Nashville

Two situations dominate here. The first is the borrower who was put into a jumbo loan that should have been high-balance conforming. If you closed above $832,750 but at or below the current $1,029,250 limit, it is worth having the note reviewed — particularly if you closed in a prior year when the limit was lower and your balance now sits inside the current one.

The second is mortgage insurance. Davidson County values were essentially flat over the past year, up just 0.1%, so the honest answer on removing mortgage insurance depends heavily on when you bought. Buyers from 2020 through 2022 are frequently past 20% equity. Buyers from 2024 and 2025 often are not, and you should want a lender who says so rather than one who runs the file anyway.

On condos, remember that a refinance triggers the same project review as a purchase. If the building's reserves or delinquency rate have slipped since you bought, a refinance can be harder than the original loan was.

Cash-out refinancing in Nashville

Most conventional cash-out programs go to 80% of value, and VA cash-out can go higher for eligible borrowers. In a market with six months of inventory and 67 median days on market, appraisals are coming in more conservatively than they did in the 2021 through 2022 stretch — build that into your expectations rather than being surprised by it.

Locally the money most often goes toward renovation of older housing stock in the eastern and southern neighborhoods, consolidating higher-rate debt, or funding a down payment on an investment property. If the plan is the last of those, talk through the STR permit issue above before you commit to a purchase price based on short-term rental income.

Nashville mortgage questions

Other areas we serve

• White House, TN
• Hendersonville, TN
• Gallatin, TN
• Springfield, TN
• Portland, TN
• Goodlettsville, TN
• Clarksville, TN

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Sources and data notes. Davidson County median sale price, sales volume, days on market and sale-to-list ratio: Redfin, July 2026. Regional single-family and condominium medians: Greater Nashville REALTORS, June 2026. Population, growth and income: U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts, July 1 2025 estimate and 2020–2024 American Community Survey. Conforming loan limits: FHFA, 2026, including the $832,750 national baseline. FHA loan limits: HUD, 2026, including the $541,287 national floor. THDA Great Choice acquisition cost and income limits effective August 1 2026; the acquisition cost increase to $500,000 took effect in May 2026. Condominium project review requirements per the Fannie Mae Selling Guide as published August 2026. Downtown condominium FHA approval counts reflect a published survey of eighteen tracked buildings and are not a substitute for checking HUD's current approved condominium list. Short-term rental permit rules per Metropolitan Code Chapter 6.28 and Metro Codes Department guidance. Employer headcounts are approximate, compiled from published rankings of varying vintage. Figures are current as of publication and change over time. Nothing on this page is a commitment to lend or an offer to extend credit. All loans are subject to credit approval.