Physician Loan or Conventional? Both Have Cases.
Program and regulatory figures verified October 9, 2026. Details change; confirm your scenario with us.
The honest comparison, including the cases where the physician product is the wrong answer and we tell you to take the conventional loan.
Side by side
| Physician portfolio | Conventional (agency) | |
|---|---|---|
| Income document | signed contract | pay stubs, or contract inside ~90 days |
| Start-date window | 150 days | ~90 days |
| Student debt | programme-specific treatment | agency formula |
| Loan limit | lender's own | ★ $1,029,250 or $832,750 by county |
| Who holds it | the lender | Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac |
| Terms change | yes, lender's call | agency guidelines |
No rate column. We do not publish rates, and a comparison that invented two would be worse than none.
When the physician loan is clearly right
- You are closing more than 90 days before your start date. This is the common case for a July start and it is decisive.
- Your student loan payment breaks agency debt-to-income.
- You have little saved for a down payment because you have been a resident.
★ A Tennessee resident who signs in January for a July start is in the first bullet, and no amount of good credit fixes it under agency rules. The timing.
★ When conventional is the better answer
We would rather lose the portfolio loan than put you in the wrong product:
- You already have 20% down and manageable student debt. Agency financing is cheaper to run and more portable.
- You are already employed and paid, with stubs in hand. The contract advantage is worth nothing to you.
- Your purchase is comfortably under the county limit and your file is clean. There is no problem for the portfolio product to solve.
★★ The Tennessee wrinkle in this comparison
In most states, "is my purchase under the conforming limit" has one answer. Here it has two, and they differ by $196,500.
A $900,000 Williamson County purchase is inside the $1,029,250 high-cost limit and so can be conventional. The same price in a baseline county exceeds $832,750 and cannot. Same house price, different product, because of the county.
★ That is the single most useful thing to check before you decide which loan you are comparing. The county list.
And above the limit
A loan above the applicable county limit is a jumbo: not agency, underwritten to the lender's standards, typically with tighter reserve expectations. That is a third product, not a flavour of conventional.
Send the contract, the servicer statements, the county and the price range, and we will tell you which of the three fits. Mike Certo, NMLS #260555. (480) 296-6513.
Frequently asked questions
Is a physician loan better than a conventional loan?
It depends on the file. The physician product wins when you are closing more than ninety days before your start date, when student loan payments break agency debt-to-income, or when you have little saved. Conventional financing is often better when you already have twenty percent down, manageable student debt, and pay stubs in hand.Does the conforming loan limit apply to conventional loans in Tennessee?
Yes, and it varies. Fourteen Tennessee counties carry a 2026 one-unit limit of $1,029,250 and the other eighty-one carry $832,750. A $900,000 purchase can be conventional in Williamson County and cannot in a baseline county.When should a physician take a conventional loan instead?
When the portfolio product has no problem to solve: twenty percent down, modest student debt, employment already begun with pay stubs available, and a purchase comfortably under the county conforming limit.What happens above the Tennessee conforming limit?
The loan becomes a jumbo. That is a separate product, not a variety of conventional financing: it is not agency-eligible, it is underwritten to the lender's own standards, and it typically carries tighter reserve and documentation expectations.Mike Certo · NMLS #260555 · Cornerstone First Mortgage NMLS #173855 · Equal Housing Lender. Educational content about physician mortgage financing, not a loan commitment and not legal, tax or financial advice. The Tennessee State Loan Repayment Program is administered by the Tennessee Department of Health and the Family Medicine Loan Repayment Incentive through the Tennessee Academy of Family Physicians, neither by Cornerstone; their terms, award amounts and application cycles are set by those bodies and change. Figures here carry the date we verified them against the programmes' own published materials. Physician-loan program terms, eligible degrees and overlays are set by the lender and change. All loans are subject to borrower, property and program qualification.