Almost every longtime homeowner I sit down with about downsizing says a version of the same thing. They want the single level. They want the smaller roof, the shorter list of things to worry about, someone else handling the front yard. And then they say, "but I'm not giving up my three percent loan."
It's a fair objection, and it's the real reason a lot of coastal Orange County homes that should be trading aren't. So when a bill landed in Washington this month aimed squarely at that problem, my phone started ringing. Here is what it actually says, and why the answer for a Newport Beach downsizer looks different from the answer you'll read in a national article.
In this guide: The MOVE Act · Two key words · Where coverage stops · What portability is worth · California's version · Buying down · What to do now · Bill status · My take · Common questions
What the MOVE Act actually is
On August 3, 2026, Representative Thomas Kean Jr. of New Jersey introduced H.R. 10028, the Making Ownership Viable for Everyone Act. Everyone calls it the MOVE Act. It was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services the same day.
The whole thing runs two sections and barely two pages. Its operative language requires Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, within 180 days of enactment, to begin buying and securitizing conventional mortgages under which, in the bill's own words:
"the mortgagor is permitted by mortgagee to transfer the interest rate, terms and balance of such mortgage to a new property within 90 days of selling the property originally securing such mortgage."
In plain English: it would clear the way for a loan you can take with you. Sell your house, buy the next one, keep the rate. Those loans are called portable mortgages. They are ordinary in Canada and the United Kingdom, and according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, they don't currently exist in the American market at all.
Two words in that sentence do a great deal of work
Read the language again: "permitted by mortgagee." The mortgagee is your lender.
The bill does not require any lender to offer portability. It requires Fannie and Freddie to buy those loans if a lender chooses to write them. That distinction matters more than the headlines suggest. The MOVE Act would open a door. It would not walk anyone through it.
Which leads to the question I've been asked six times in the last two weeks, so let me answer it plainly. No, this would not let you move the loan you already have. Portability has to be written into the note, and existing conventional notes don't contain it. Nothing in this bill reaches back and inserts it. Portability, if it ever arrives here, arrives on loans written after it exists.
There's a timing detail worth noticing too. The 90-day clock starts when you sell. Plenty of coastal downsizing moves are structured the other way, buy first and sell second, because nobody wants to be homeless in between and the right single-level doesn't come along on schedule. That sequence and that clock don't line up neatly.
Here's where the national coverage stops being useful
When HousingWire asked real estate professionals about portability last December, Phillip Cantrell of Benchmark Realty made the point you'll see repeated everywhere: for sellers looking to move laterally or down in price, portability would offer little benefit. The logic is sound. Portability protects a loan balance, and if you're buying a cheaper house you need a smaller loan, so there's less to protect.
That reasoning holds almost everywhere in the country. It does not hold here.
In the beach cities, downsizing is a square-footage decision, not a price decision. The thing people want at this stage is scarce. Right now in Newport Beach there are 46 single-story detached homes on the market against 147 two-story ones. Roughly one in four. Add the single-level attached and HOA-maintained options and you add another 34. That's the entire menu.
Scarce and wanted is a premium, every time. A renovated single level with a yard the association maintains is one of the most competitively bid things in this market, because every buyer over 55 in Orange County is looking for the same handful of them.
Now look at the other side of the trade. The home a longtime owner is selling is often a two-story that has been lived in hard and loved for thirty years. Sometimes it's attached. Usually the kitchen was last done in a decade that has since come back into fashion twice. Buyers price that honestly, and they price the stairs honestly too.
So the actual transaction, more often than not, is: sell a dated or attached two-story at a discount, buy a renovated single level at a premium. Less house, more money. I watch it happen constantly, and almost nobody walks in expecting it.
That flips the portability question. If you're financing the same amount or more in the new home, a portable mortgage would be worth real money to you.
What portability would actually be worth, if it existed
Say you carry a $500,000 balance at 3.25 percent, and after the sale you need $800,000 of financing on the new place.
All new money at Freddie Mac's 6.67 percent average for the week of August 13, 2026 runs about $5,146 a month.
With portability, the ported $500,000 stays at 3.25 percent, about $2,176, and only the $300,000 gap borrows at today's rate, about $1,930. Blended, roughly $4,106 a month.
Call it $1,040 a month, or about $12,500 a year. Real money, and more than the national commentary would lead a coastal downsizer to expect.
It also still doesn't exist. So hold that number next to the one that does.
California already gave you a portability that works today
The MOVE Act is about moving your interest rate. Proposition 19 is about moving your property tax base, and it has been operative in California since April 1, 2021.
If you're 55 or older, Prop 19 lets you carry the assessed value from your current home to a replacement home anywhere in California. Up to three times in your lifetime, and transfers you made years ago under the old Prop 60 or Prop 90 rules do not count against those three, which surprises almost everyone. The replacement has to be bought or built within two years of the sale, before or after.
And here is where buying up changes everything, because the sequence you choose now has a price tag.
If your replacement costs the same or less than your original home's full cash value, the base transfers clean and none of this matters much. If it costs more, only the excess above your allowance gets added to your base, and the allowance depends on when you buy. Buy before the sale and it's 100 percent of the original's full cash value. Buy within the first year after, 105 percent. In the second year, 110 percent. The claim is filed on form BOE-19-B, generally within three years of the replacement purchase.
Put illustrative numbers on it. Assessed value around $310,000 after decades of Prop 13 protection. The 2025-26 ad valorem rate for the Newport Beach tax rate areas is 1.04773 percent, so the current bill is roughly $3,250 a year before the flat direct assessments at the bottom of every Orange County tax bill. The two-story sells for $2.6 million. The renovated single level costs $3.0 million.
When you buy | Allowance | Excess added | New base | Ad valorem tax |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Before the sale | $2,600,000 | $400,000 | $710,000 | about $7,440/yr |
Year 1 after the sale | $2,730,000 | $270,000 | $580,000 | about $6,080/yr |
Year 2 after the sale | $2,860,000 | $140,000 | $450,000 | about $4,720/yr |
No Prop 19 transfer at all | n/a | n/a | $3,000,000 | about $31,430/yr |
Illustrative only. Ad valorem portion at the Newport Beach 2025-26 rate, before flat direct assessments.
Two things fall out of that table.
The first is the size of it. Even on the least generous sequence, carrying the base saves about $24,000 a year against a full reassessment, versus about $12,500 for a portable mortgage that Congress hasn't passed.
The second is subtler and it's the one that costs people money. Buying before you sell is the most comfortable way to move and the most expensive prong of the value test. In this example it costs about $1,362 a year more than waiting until after the sale, every year you own the home. That is a real trade, and it's worth making on purpose rather than by accident. Sometimes the comfort is worth it. Sometimes a rent-back or a short bridge gets you the same comfort and the better allowance.
Those figures are illustrative and yours will be different, so please work from your own tax bill, your own loan, and your own numbers rather than my example.
And if you genuinely are buying down
Some downsizers really are moving to something cheaper, whether that's inland, out of state, or into a smaller attached home. If that's you, the picture simplifies in your favor. Your Prop 19 base transfers clean with nothing added, the sequence question mostly stops mattering, and a portable mortgage would be worth very little to you because you need less financing than you have. The national take is right about your situation. It's just not right about most of Newport Beach.
What I'd do while Washington sorts itself out
Ask your lender two questions now instead of later. Does my note contain anything resembling a portability or portfolio-retention provision, and what would a buy-first structure actually cost me, whether that's a bridge, a line of credit against current equity, or a larger down payment with a recast afterward. Now that you know buying first also costs you on the Prop 19 side, you can weigh both at once instead of one at a time.
Then look at the whole picture. Your tax base, your rate, your capital gains exposure and the primary-residence exclusion, your monthly carry in the new place including HOA dues and insurance. I've watched more than one homeowner guard a low interest rate and quietly let a much larger property tax advantage sit unused.
And keep an eye on the other track in Congress, which gets less attention in my world but probably matters more to a longtime coastal owner. Several bills would raise the capital gains exclusion on a primary-residence sale, a pair of figures that hasn't moved since 1997. That one deserves its own post.
Where the bill actually stands
I'd rather give you the real picture than an exciting one.
As of the most recent update to the congressional record for this bill, H.R. 10028 has one sponsor and no cosponsors. The only action recorded is the referral to committee. There is no companion bill in the Senate, and no hearing on the calendar.
The more interesting movement is at the regulator. In November 2025, FHFA Director Bill Pulte said the agency was actively evaluating portable mortgages. That path wouldn't need Congress at all. Jake Krimmel, a senior economist at Realtor.com, responded to that proposal by calling it a brute-force attempt to solve the lock-in effect, and argued portability isn't compatible with the architecture of American mortgage finance. Mortgage-backed securities are priced on assumptions about how long loans stay outstanding, and portability scrambles those assumptions. Analysts expect portable loans would price somewhat higher than standard ones, because investors would want to be paid for the added uncertainty.
My take
Portability is a good idea, and unlike most of the country, it would actually help the people I work with, because coastal downsizing is usually a move up in price. That makes it more frustrating that it doesn't exist.
The portability California already wrote into law does exist. It's larger than most people realize, it's worth roughly twice what a ported rate would be in the example above, and it runs on a two-year clock that does not care what any committee decides. I'd build the plan around the rule that exists, and treat the rest as news.
Common questions
What is a portable mortgage?
A portable mortgage lets a homeowner carry an existing loan's interest rate, terms, and balance to a new property instead of paying the loan off at closing and taking a new one at current rates. Portable mortgages are common in Canada and the United Kingdom. They do not currently exist in the United States market.
What is the MOVE Act, H.R. 10028?
The MOVE Act, formally the Making Ownership Viable for Everyone Act, is a short bill introduced in the U.S. House on August 3, 2026 by Representative Thomas Kean Jr. of New Jersey. It would require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, within 180 days of enactment, to begin purchasing and securitizing conventional mortgages that a lender permits the borrower to transfer to a new property within 90 days of selling the original home. It was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services and has not advanced.
Could I transfer my current mortgage rate to a new home today?
No. Portability has to be written into the loan, and existing conventional notes do not contain it. The MOVE Act would not add portability to loans that already exist. If portability ever becomes available in the United States, it would apply to loans written after that point.
Is a portable mortgage the same as an assumable mortgage?
No. With an assumable mortgage, the buyer takes over the seller's existing loan. With a portable mortgage, the seller takes the loan to their own next home. Roughly 23 percent of American mortgages are federally backed, through FHA, VA, or USDA, and able to be assumed. Conventional Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans generally must be paid off when the home sells.
Do single-story homes cost more in Newport Beach?
Single-level homes are scarce here relative to demand. In Newport Beach there are currently about 46 single-story detached homes on the market against roughly 147 two-story ones, plus about 34 single-level attached or HOA-maintained options. Scarcity in the format most 55+ buyers want tends to support a premium, which is why many coastal downsizers reduce square footage while increasing purchase price.
Would a portable mortgage help someone downsizing in Newport Beach?
Potentially more than national commentary suggests. Portability protects an existing loan balance, and it is often assumed downsizers need less financing. In the beach cities, where a single-level replacement frequently costs more than the two-story being sold, a downsizer may finance the same amount or more, which is exactly the situation portability is designed for.
Would the MOVE Act change Prop 19?
No. The MOVE Act is federal legislation about mortgage finance. Proposition 19 is California law about property tax assessment. They operate independently, and neither one affects the other.
Does it matter whether I buy before or after I sell?
For the Prop 19 value comparison, yes, and it matters most when your replacement costs more than your original home. Buying before the sale requires the replacement to come in at or under 100 percent of the original home's full cash value. Buying within the first year after the sale allows 105 percent, and the second year allows 110 percent. Anything above the applicable figure is added to the transferred base, permanently. Timing also affects financing and logistics, which is a separate conversation with your lender.
How many times can I transfer my property tax base under Prop 19?
Up to three times, if you are 55 or older, to a replacement home anywhere in California. Transfers made under the earlier Proposition 60 or Proposition 90 rules do not count toward those three.
Reviewed August 2026.
This is general real estate education, not legal or tax advice. Before making a decision, you should confirm your specific situation with a CPA, attorney, or qualified advisor.
Thinking through a downsizing move?
If you're weighing a move in coastal Orange County, the useful next step is to look at your real numbers and your real timeline. Start with my Prop 19 downsizing guide, or reach out and we'll walk through it together.
Jade Larney · Residential Real Estate | Anvil · (949) 995-JADE · [email protected] · DRE 02241676
A note from Jade
Looking in coastal Orange County? Tell me what matters most in your next home and I will send what actually fits, including the quiet listings that never make it to the portals.
