A $4M-and-up home in Palm Beach is financed with a jumbo mortgage in 2026. The conforming loan limit for Palm Beach County is $832,750 this year, so even a $4,000,000 home bought with 20% down needs a $3,200,000 loan, nearly four times the largest mortgage Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac will purchase. At this level the practical choices are cash, a jumbo or super-jumbo loan, borrowing against a portfolio — or a coordinated structure that pairs the loan with a plan for its later payments. The Family Office Mortgage is one such structure.
Why nearly every purchase here is a jumbo loan
Each year the Federal Housing Finance Agency sets the largest loan the two enterprises may buy. For 2026 the baseline is $832,750 for a one-unit property, and the high-cost ceiling is $1,249,125, per the FHFA's November 2025 announcement. Palm Beach County sits at the baseline: it is not a high-cost county. In Florida only Monroe County carries a higher limit, at $990,150; Miami-Dade and Broward are at the baseline as well, per the FHFA's county-level list.
The consequence for Palm Beach is simple. A $4,000,000 home with 20% down requires a $3,200,000 mortgage. A $9,000,000 home — a representative price for this market — requires $7,200,000 of debt at the same 20%. Both are several multiples of the conforming ceiling, which puts every one of these loans in super-jumbo territory: the lender keeps the loan or sells it privately, writes its own terms, and prices it accordingly. The articles on how interest-only jumbo mortgages work and paying cash versus financing cover the two most common shapes these loans take.
How buyers in Palm Beach actually finance
Above the conforming ceiling, underwriting is bespoke. Lenders making loans of this size weigh the whole balance sheet: documented income, liquid assets remaining after closing, credit history, and the size of the down payment. Terms are typically set in writing for each transaction.
Three patterns are common among financed purchases at this level.
A straight jumbo, often interest only. The buyer puts 20% to 40% down and takes an interest-only loan for the first years to keep the early payment low, with the step-up planned separately. Lenders qualify you on that step-up — the later principal-and-interest payment, not the interest-only one.
Borrowing against a portfolio. Some buyers fund all or part of the price with a securities-backed line rather than a mortgage, keeping the home unleveraged on paper. That route has its own terms and its own calls, and buy, borrow, die and where the home fits sets out how households weigh it.
A coordinated structure. A minority of purchases are planned as a package from the start: the mortgage, the source of its later payments, and the household's broader balance sheet designed together rather than assembled deal by deal. That is the category The Family Office Mortgage belongs to.
Timing also shapes the market. Palm Beach runs on a well-known seasonal rhythm: showings, listings and closings concentrate in season, roughly December through April, when seasonal residents are in town. A financed buyer should expect a cash competitor on the other side of the table and a seller who values certainty of closing. Full underwriting before the offer, and a lender who can close on the seller's calendar, matter more than a quarter point of rate.
The local costs that change the math
Florida taxes documents, not just transfers, and the amounts are material at these prices.
Documentary stamp tax on the deed. Section 201.02 of the Florida Statutes imposes 70 cents per $100 of consideration on the deed, as confirmed by the Florida Department of Revenue. On a $9,000,000 purchase that is $63,000. The statute's definition of consideration includes the assumption or continuation of an existing mortgage, so a buyer taking a home subject to a loan should expect the tax base to reflect it. The purchase contract allocates the tax between buyer and seller.
Documentary stamp tax on the note. Section 201.08 adds 35 cents per $100 of the amount borrowed, on the promissory note or the recorded mortgage. On a $7,200,000 loan that is $25,200. The tax scales directly with the loan size, which makes loan size a closing-cost decision as well as a financing one.
Property taxes and Save Our Homes. Florida's homestead exemption can reduce a home's taxable value by as much as $50,000, and the Save Our Homes limitation then caps annual increases in the assessed value of a homesteaded home at the lower of 3% or the change in the Consumer Price Index. Two details matter to a new Palm Beach buyer. The exemption requires the home to be your permanent residence, so a seasonal home does not qualify. And after a change of ownership the home is reassessed at just value: the cap does not carry over from the seller, and a new buyer's assessment starts at the purchase price.
No personal income tax. Florida imposes no personal income tax, as the Department of Revenue confirms. Many households buying at this level are relocating full-time or weighing a change of domicile, and the absence of a state income tax is one input in that decision. It is residency planning context, not mortgage advice, and domicile questions belong with your CPA and attorney — the homestead decision and the income-tax question are linked, because both turn on where your permanent residence is.
Where the program fits
The Family Office Mortgage is a privately offered program for households buying a home of $4M or more, with $5M or more in assets not counting the home and $500,000 or more in income. The published criteria are exact, and the full structure is on the program page.
For a $9,000,000 Palm Beach home it commits about half the price up front: 20% as the down payment ($1,800,000) and up to 30% as the contribution to a structured financial product ($2,700,000) — $4,500,000 at closing, with bank financing behind part of the instrument. The mortgage is interest only for the first fifteen years: at an assumed 6.5%, the payment on $7,200,000 is $39,000 a month. The rate is an assumption for illustration, not an offer. From year 16 the loan amortizes over fifteen years, and the scheduled payment at that same assumed rate rises to $62,720 a month. The financial instrument's projected payout is designed to make those payments — sized to the payment, in the program's words. In the $4M reference case the projection is $340,000 a year against $334,505 of scheduled payments. The projection is a design, not a certainty: the instrument's values, the bank's loan and the collateral are reviewed every year against the plan.
Who it suits here: a household keeping a Palm Beach home for the long term, with capital it can commit at closing and income that carries the interest-only years comfortably. Households that finance the way a family office does tend to recognize the shape immediately — capital working in a coordinated plan rather than sitting in the walls.
Who it does not suit: a buyer optimizing for the least cash at closing, since a traditional jumbo at 20% down commits $1,800,000 on this home against $4,500,000; a buyer who may sell within a few years, because the instrument needs its fifteen-year horizon; and a buyer who would rather hold every dollar of the price in other investments. None of those is a flaw in the buyer. The program is one structure among several, and the comparison shows the complete paths side by side.
One point bears repeating: mortgages under the program are made by third-party lenders. The program is not a lender, a bank or a government program, and it does not set rates. You qualify for the mortgage in the usual way, with your lender or one the team introduces, and the lender qualifies you against the later payment from the first day.
The calculator runs the structure on your price; it opens with this market's $9,000,000 example.
