FHA Loans

FHA loans in Long Beach, CA: 2026 limits and what buyers actually pay

Updated November 13, 2026

By Vinura Abeysundara

Head of Growth at TurboHome

Reviewed by:

Vinura Abeysundara

Head of Growth at TurboHome

Kevin Kretzmer

Head Agent, California · CalDRE #01997822

8.4% of Long Beach home sales with a recorded financing type closed with an FHA loan from May through October 2026, up from 8.1% a year earlier. FHA buyers paid a median $715,000, against $870,000 citywide, and the 2026 FHA loan limit for a one-unit home in Los Angeles County is $1,249,125. In Long Beach, FHA buyers were the most likely of any group to pay over asking (60.4% of FHA closings) and waited the longest, a median 32 days on market against 15 for cash, while cash closings came in below list at 99.23%.

TurboHome Market Analysis · 1,133 closings · May 1 to Oct 31, 2026 · Last updated November 13, 2026

This guide answers two questions with local data: can you buy a home in Long Beach with an FHA loan, and how do FHA offers fare against cash. It uses 1,133 single-family, condo and townhouse closings in our MLS feed from May 1 to October 31, 2026, of which 1,081 (95.4%) recorded a single financing type.

What is the FHA loan limit in Long Beach?

The 2026 FHA loan limit for a one-unit home in Los Angeles County is $1,249,125, according to HUD's FHA mortgage limits lookup (checked November 13, 2026). 78.6% of Long Beach closings from May through October 2026 were priced at or under that figure. That is the national ceiling for high-cost areas. The median FHA buyer in Long Beach paid $715,000, well under the limit.

Nationally, the 2026 FHA one-unit limit runs from a floor of $541,287 in lower-cost areas to a ceiling of $1,249,125 in high-cost areas. For comparison, the 2026 conforming loan limit is $832,750, with a high-cost ceiling of $1,249,125.

The limit caps the loan amount, not the price. A buyer can pay more than the limit with a larger down payment, so the share of homes priced at or under it understates what FHA can reach.

The FHA rules that decide whether you qualify, from HUD Handbook 4000.1 (checked November 13, 2026):

Down payment and credit score: at least 3.5% down with a credit score of 580 or higher, and at least 10% down with a score from 500 to 579. Scores under 500 are not eligible.
Upfront mortgage insurance: 1.75% of the base loan amount.
Annual mortgage insurance on loans longer than 15 years: 0.50% to 0.55% of the loan a year for base loan amounts up to $726,200, and 0.70% to 0.75% above that, depending on the down payment. With less than 10% down it lasts for the life of the loan; with 10% or more down, 11 years.
Seller and agent credits: interested parties, including the seller and real estate agents, can contribute up to 6% of the sales price toward closing costs, prepaid items and discount points, but not toward the minimum down payment.

How many buyers in Long Beach actually use an FHA loan

1,081 of 1,133 Long Beach closings from May through October 2026 (95.4%) recorded a single financing type. Of those, 8.4% used an FHA loan (91 closings), against 8.1% in the same months of 2025. Cash rose from 20.7% to 22.1% of these closings and conventional loans fell from 51.9% to 49.9%; VA held at 3.3%.

How Long Beach buyers paid, share of closings with a single recorded financing type, data table
Financing	Share, May to Oct 2026	Share, May to Oct 2025
FHA	8.4%	8.1%
VA	3.3%	3.3%
Cash	22.1%	20.7%
Conventional	49.9%	51.9%

FHA buyers paid a median $715,000, against $735,000 in the same months of 2025. The citywide median was $870,000, up 3.6% from $840,000, and the median home sold in 19 days, against 18.5 a year earlier.

Where FHA buyers are closing in Long Beach

FHA share. Every figure is in the table below.

Long Beach neighborhoods with at least 20 closings with a recorded financing type, May 1 to October 31, 2026, by volume. A dash means the neighborhood had no FHA closings. Neighborhood FHA medians rest on few closings., data table
Neighborhood	Closings	FHA	VA	Cash	Median price	Median FHA price
Bixby Knolls	49	6.1%	4.1%	10.2%	$1,051,011	$1,000,000
Belmont Heights	45	2.2%	2.2%	28.9%	$1,020,000	$739,900
Carson Park (Plaza East)	41	2.4%	0%	24.4%	$1,075,000	$1,075,000
Alamitos Beach	41	4.9%	2.4%	41.5%	$635,000	$542,500
South of Conant	38	0%	5.3%	26.3%	$1,062,500	-
Franklin	35	11.4%	2.9%	14.3%	$494,000	$452,000
Downtown Long Beach	35	0%	0%	34.3%	$610,000	-
Los Altos South	29	3.4%	10.3%	20.7%	$1,069,000	$1,300,000
Belmont Shore	28	0%	3.6%	35.7%	$1,419,950	-
East Village	26	23.1%	0%	23.1%	$400,000	$405,500
West Village	25	8.0%	0%	8.0%	$430,000	$465,000
California Heights	24	8.3%	0%	29.2%	$1,192,500	$1,238,250
Naples	24	0%	0%	41.7%	$1,830,000	-
Los Altos North	24	0%	0%	12.5%	$1,075,000	-

East Village had the highest FHA share of the 14 listed neighborhoods, 23.1% of closings at a median price of $400,000, followed by Franklin (11.4%, median $494,000), California Heights (8.3%) and West Village (8.0%).

Naples, Belmont Shore, Downtown Long Beach, South of Conant and Los Altos North recorded no FHA closings. Downtown, at a median $610,000, shows that price alone does not decide where FHA buyers close; 34.3% of its closings were cash.

In California Heights, FHA buyers paid a median $1,238,250, just under the $1,249,125 county limit, and in Los Altos South $1,300,000, above it, which FHA allows when the down payment covers the difference.

FHA by price range in Long Beach

Share of Long Beach closings by financing type and sale price, May 1 to October 31, 2026, data table
Price range	Closings	FHA	VA	Cash
$300K to $500K	150	15.3%	4.7%	21.3%
$500K to $750K	250	11.6%	3.6%	20.8%
$750K to $1M	257	10.1%	3.1%	23.3%
$1M to $1.5M	280	4.3%	3.9%	20.4%
$1.5M and up	126	0%	0.8%	26.2%

FHA's share is highest in the lowest band we report, 15.3% from $300,000 to $500,000, and still 10.1% from $750,000 to $1 million, before falling to 4.3% from $1 million to $1.5 million and none above $1.5 million.

Do sellers accept FHA offers in Long Beach?

Here is how Long Beach closings compared by how the buyer paid. The closed sales show what each group paid and how long the home sat on the market, not why a seller picked one offer over another.

Long Beach closings by financing type, May 1 to October 31, 2026. Sale-to-list is the closed price divided by the final list price., data table
Financing	Closings	Median price	Median days on market	Median sale-to-list	Closed above asking	Closed below asking
FHA	91	$715,000	32	100.71%	60.4%	18.7%
Conventional	539	$900,000	18	100.00%	41.4%	43.0%
Cash	239	$904,500	15	99.23%	26.8%	54.4%
VA	36	$750,000	28.5	99.38%	41.7%	55.6%

FHA closings came in at a median 100.71% of list, and 60.4% went above asking, the highest share of the four groups; conventional loans came in at 100.00% (41.4% above asking), VA at 99.38% (41.7%) and cash at 99.23% (26.8%).

FHA homes also sat the longest, a median 32 days, against 28.5 for VA, 18 for conventional and 15 for cash. FHA buyers paid a median $715,000 against $904,500 for cash, so they were often competing for cheaper homes, which is part of why their numbers differ.

Condos and FHA in Long Beach

8.7% of Long Beach's single-family closings and 8.6% of its condo closings used an FHA loan. Of the FHA closings, 67.0% were single-family homes and 33.0% condos. Long Beach has the closest FHA rates for houses and condos of the six California cities in this series: 8.7% of single-family sales and 8.6% of condo sales used FHA, and a third of FHA closings (33.0%) were condos.

FHA insures a condo loan only when the unit is in an FHA-approved condominium project, meets FHA's site condominium definition or has completed FHA's Single-Unit Approval (HUD Handbook 4000.1), so ask your lender to check the building before you write an offer.

What this means for your offer in Long Beach

An FHA offer in Long Beach is most common under $1 million and in East Village, Franklin and West Village, where FHA buyers already close; in Naples and Belmont Shore, nobody closed with FHA in six months.

60.4% of FHA buyers here paid over asking even though their homes sat a median 32 days, so do not assume a listing that has been on the market for weeks will sell below asking; price the offer from recent sales of similar homes.

Freddie Mac's weekly survey put the average 30-year fixed rate at 7.11% on November 12, 2026, down from 7.18% the week before and up from 6.24% a year earlier. FHA quotes differ from that average, so compare an FHA quote with a conventional one with mortgage insurance included.

TurboHome's own California buyers took a median 28 days from accepted offer to closing on a conventional loan, against 14 days with cash (closings November 1, 2025 to October 31, 2026). Our own FHA closings are too few to report a median. The median TurboHome buyer refund in California was $14,663. 59% of TurboHome's California buyers who stated a preference (91 of 155) chose cash credits at closing. On an FHA purchase, a cash credit at closing counts toward HUD's 6% limit on interested party contributions and can pay closing costs, prepaid items and discount points, but not the 3.5% down payment.

Before a TurboHome buyer writes an offer, their agent runs a comparable-based valuation of the home and an AI offer-acceptance prediction, so the offer price rests on recent sales of similar homes rather than a citywide average.

Methodology

Source: TurboHome's MLS closings data (our MLS feed), closings from May 1 to October 31, 2026, compared with May 1 to October 31, 2025.

Filters: single-family homes, condos and townhouses only; closings under $50,000 excluded. Financing shares use only closings where the MLS buyer-financing field carries a single value: 1,081 of 1,133 Long Beach closings (95.4%). The financing mix counts every closing with a single recorded financing type. The table comparing financing types also requires a recorded days on market from 0 to 730 days, which drops a few listings per city, so its FHA count and median can differ slightly from the financing mix. Neighborhoods are those with at least 20 such closings. Prices, days on market and sale-to-list ratios are medians.

Coverage: Buyer financing is not reported in every MLS. San Francisco, Houston and Katy have almost no buyer-financing data (8% of San Francisco closings carry a financing code, and under 1% of Houston closings), and in Los Angeles and Pasadena the closings with a financing code skew far cheaper than those without one ($845,000 against $1,450,000 in Los Angeles). We left those cities out of this series rather than publish a biased share. Sacramento is left out because its sample is too small.

FHA loan limits: the Los Angeles County one-unit limit is from HUD's FHA mortgage limits lookup (FHA Forward, CY2026), checked November 13, 2026. These are the 2026 limits. HUD announced them in December 2025, and they apply to FHA case numbers assigned January 1 through December 31, 2026, so expect new figures for 2027. National floor and ceiling: NAR (December 11, 2025) and NAHB. Conforming limits: Rocket Mortgage (updated January 5, 2026).

FHA rules: HUD Handbook 4000.1, last revised November 26, 2025, checked November 13, 2026; annual mortgage insurance rates from Mortgagee Letter 2023-05. Mortgage rate: Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, November 12, 2026.

TurboHome figures: TurboHome's own closings over $50,000 from November 1, 2025 to October 31, 2026. Our own FHA and VA closings are too few to report as medians.

FAQ

What is the FHA loan limit in Long Beach in 2026?

$1,249,125 for a one-unit home. Long Beach is in Los Angeles County, and that is HUD's 2026 FHA limit for the county (checked November 13, 2026); 78.6% of Long Beach closings from May through October 2026 were priced at or under it. The limits apply to FHA case numbers assigned in 2026 and are expected to change for 2027.

How many Long Beach home buyers use an FHA loan?

8.4% of Long Beach closings with a recorded financing type used an FHA loan from May through October 2026 (91 closings), against 8.1% in the same months of 2025. FHA buyers paid a median $715,000, against $870,000 citywide.

Do sellers in Long Beach accept FHA offers?

Yes. From May through October 2026, FHA closings in Long Beach came in at a median 100.71% of list, and 60.4% went above asking, the highest share of any financing type; cash closings came in at 99.23%. FHA homes took the longest to sell, a median 32 days against 15 for cash.

Can I use a buyer's agent rebate with an FHA loan?

Usually yes, as a credit toward closing costs. HUD's FHA handbook (4000.1, last revised November 26, 2025, checked November 13, 2026) counts real estate agents and sellers as interested parties, and together they can contribute up to 6% of the sales price toward your origination fees, other closing costs, prepaid items and discount points. Those contributions cannot pay the 3.5% minimum down payment, and anything above 6% or above your actual costs is treated as an inducement that lowers the price your loan is based on, so tell your lender about the rebate early.

Can I get cash back when I buy a house in Long Beach?

Yes. TurboHome is a flat-fee buyer's brokerage serving Long Beach: it charges a flat fee instead of a percentage commission and refunds the rest of the buyer-side commission to you at closing, where it can go toward your closing costs. See how to get cash back when you buy a house, which also compares other ways to get it.

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