A cap a bank sets for itself, below the legal lending limit, on how much it will hold for one borrower, one property type or one market.
The legal lending limit is the most a bank may hold for one borrower. The house limit is the most it has decided it will hold, and it is the number that governs a real request. No regulation sets it. The bank’s board writes it into the loan policy, and it can change at any time.
Federal real estate lending guidelines expect this kind of self-set cap. They say a bank’s policy should set limits for real estate loans by type and geographic market. So a bank may keep one house limit for a single borrower and others for construction, for hotels, or for loans outside its home counties.
A request above the house limit is not always a no. It may need a sign-off from a senior credit committee or the board, or the bank may keep part of the loan and sell the rest to another lender as a participation. Both add time.
House limits are not published. Ask a lender early: what is your in-house limit for one relationship, and who decides above it?
How it shows up in the data here
Not in any public filing, so this site does not carry it. The closest public figure is the estimated largest single loan on each bank page, 15 percent of tier 1 capital plus the allowance, which is a ceiling drawn from the law and not the bank's own choice. Use the lending limit estimate as the outer bound and ask the lender for its in-house figure.
Go further
- Legal lending limit estimate: The outer bound a house limit sits under.
- Legal lending limit estimate: The most a bank can lend to one borrower, from public capital figures. Always an estimate.
- The legal lending limit, explained: A bank may not lend more than a set share of its capital to one borrower. The rule explains why a large loan gets shared, and why a lender can say a request is too big for it.
- How to pick banks for a deal with public data: Public filings cannot tell you which bank will say yes. They can tell you which banks are large enough, already hold loans like yours and lend where the property is. That is enough to turn four thousand banks into six phone calls.
- How bankers evaluate a commercial loan deal: A credit officer asks one question five ways: how will this loan be repaid, and what happens if it is not? Knowing the five tests lets you size a request before you send it.
Related terms
- Legal lending limit: The most a bank may have outstanding to one borrower by law. For national banks it is 15 percent of capital and surplus, plus 10 percent more when the extra is fully secured by readily marketable collateral.
- Capital and surplus: The capital base a national bank's lending limit is measured against: tier 1 and tier 2 capital plus the part of the loan loss allowance that tier 2 leaves out.
- Credit committee: A credit committee is the group inside a lender that decides on loans above the amount a single loan officer is allowed to decide alone.
- Loan participation: A loan in which other lenders buy shares from the lender that made it, under a written agreement that keeps the first lender in the loan for its whole life.
- CRE concentration: A bank's commercial real estate loans measured against its capital. Federal guidance from 2006 flags 300 percent of total capital, with 50 percent growth in 36 months, for closer review.
Sources
Plain definitions for orientation, not legal, tax or credit advice. A lender's own policy decides what it will do.