Fort Collins is not a city that arrived at its character by accident. Colorado State University — a public land-grant research university founded in 1870, enrolling 34,412 students as of fall 2025 and employing nearly 6,000 academic and administrative staff — is the economic and cultural anchor around which everything in this city has organized itself for more than 150 years. The CSU talent pipeline feeds Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the city’s largest AI employer, whose senior roles reach $240,500. It feeds Woodward, Inc., the aerospace and industrial control solutions manufacturer that has been designing cutting-edge systems for aviation, turbines, and defense applications since its own founding in 1870. It feeds Intel, AMD, Advanced Energy Industries, Broadcom, and more than 35 active tech startups operating in a city that ranks as a CompTIA top-20 tech city for IT jobs nationally.
It also feeds the civic institutions that make Fort Collins genuinely distinctive. Walt Disney World’s Main Street USA was modeled on Old Town Fort Collins — a fact that says something specific about the character of a place. More than 285 miles of dedicated bike trails connect neighborhoods, workplaces, and the Cache la Poudre River, the only Wild and Scenic River in Colorado, which runs directly through the city. Horsetooth Reservoir sits just west of town, offering sailing, fishing, and kayaking from a location that most cities could only dream of. Three hundred-plus days of sunshine annually. A craft beer culture built around nationally recognized names like New Belgium, Odell, and Funkwerks. Fort Collins has ranked #1 on Livability.com‘s Top 100 Best Places to Live — a distinction that reflects the city’s particular combination of university energy, outdoor access, and economic opportunity.
The mortgage market this city produces is as distinctive as Fort Collins itself. Larimer County’s 2026 conforming loan limit is $832,750 — the standard national baseline. Fort Collins’ median home price of approximately $553,000–$580,000 in spring 2026 sits comfortably within conforming territory for most buyers. But the city’s upper-tier neighborhoods — Old Town Victorians on premium lots, Fossil Lake Ranch estates, Harmony Club golf-course properties, Horsetooth Reservoir-adjacent foothills homes — produce loan amounts that reach into jumbo and Super-Jumbo range. And the income profiles of the buyers active across the full range of Fort Collins real estate — CSU faculty with academic income structures, HPE engineers with RSU packages, Woodward aerospace professionals, and physicians at UCHealth Poudre Valley Hospital (270 beds, ACS-Verified Level III Trauma Center, celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2025) — require mortgage expertise calibrated to each profile.
Ryan Lehrman, NMLS #235295, works with all of these buyers. Fort Collins rewards specificity, and so does this practice.
Independent mortgage broker — access to dozens of lenders and programs, not one institution's product shelf
CSU and academic income expertise — understands tenure-track faculty salaries, summer research stipends, grant-funded positions, and sabbatical income structures; knows which lenders count each component most favorably
HPE, Woodward, and tech sector income — RSU vesting schedules, equity compensation, and aerospace engineering bonuses documented and presented correctly for the lenders who count them
Physician loan specialist — works with residents and attendings at UCHealth Poudre Valley Hospital and Medical Center of the Rockies (Level I Trauma, Loveland)
Jumbo depth — programs from $832,751 through $3 million and above for Old Town, Fossil Lake Ranch, Harmony Club, and Horsetooth foothills buyers
One-Time Close Construction expertise — conventional and Jumbo construction programs for Timnath, Windsor, Severance, Berthoud, and custom builds across Larimer County
Northern Colorado market knowledge — understands what drives pricing in each Fort Collins neighborhood and the surrounding communities where most new construction is happening
Transparent, no-surprise process — every cost and every step explained before you sign anything
Ryan Lehrman, NMLS #235295
Larimer County’s 2026 conforming loan limit is $832,750. Fort Collins’ median sits around $553,000–$580,000, meaning most buyers are within conforming territory. But the city’s most desirable properties — fully restored Old Town Victorians on premium lots, Fossil Lake Ranch luxury estates, Harmony Club golf-course homes, and Horsetooth foothills properties with reservoir views — exceed the conforming threshold and require jumbo financing. Ryan structures jumbo loans from $832,751 through $3 million and above, with programs available at 5% down on primary residences.
Fort Collins’ true estate tier — large custom homes on acreage outside the city, premium Horsetooth Reservoir-adjacent properties with unobstructed mountain views, and the most significant Old Town historic estates — reaches price points that require Super-Jumbo financing above $3 million. These transactions draw on portfolio lenders, asset depletion programs, and relationship-driven underwriting suited to the CSU executives, senior defense engineers, and established professionals who occupy this market.
UCHealth Poudre Valley Hospital — 270 beds, ACS-Verified Level III Trauma Center, celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2025, home to Larimer County’s only ACGME-accredited family medicine residency program — is the healthcare anchor of Fort Collins. Its sister hospital, UCHealth Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland (187 beds, Level I Trauma Center), extends the region’s care network 20 minutes south. Physician mortgage loans designed for residents, fellows, and attendings at both institutions eliminate PMI, treat student loan debt favorably, and allow qualifying on an employment contract before income history is established.
Most of Fort Collins’ new construction activity is concentrated in the surrounding communities of Timnath, Windsor, Severance, Berthoud, and Johnstown — where active builders including Richmond American, Hartford Homes, Landmark Homes Colorado, Meritage Homes, Brightland Homes, and NoCO Custom Homes are developing homes from the $400,000s to $1 million and above. One-Time Close Construction loans combine build and permanent financing into a single closing with a locked rate — covering both production community builds and custom lots across Larimer and Weld counties.
Colorado State University is not simply a large employer in Fort Collins — it is the city’s defining institution, and its influence on the mortgage market runs deep. The 34,412 students who move through CSU each year generate rental demand, entry-level buyer demand, and a graduate population that stays in the area after completing degrees and joins the tech and professional workforce. The 1,468 academic staff represent a buyer pool with income structures that require careful lender matching: tenure-track professors whose base salary is supplemented by summer research stipends (often funded by grants rather than university budgets), sabbatical arrangements that affect how lenders see annual income, consulting agreements that appear on Schedule C, and in some cases a combination of two academic incomes in a dual-faculty household. CSU’s new $110 million Engineering and AI facility — part of a broader push to make Fort Collins a regional AI research hub — is attracting new tenure-line faculty and research scientists whose income profiles are exactly the kind of complexity that requires an experienced mortgage broker to navigate correctly.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Fort Collins campus is the city’s largest private tech employer, with senior engineering and AI roles reaching $240,500 in total compensation. The compensation structure at a public company of HPE’s scale typically includes RSU grants vesting on a defined schedule — the same income qualification complexity that exists with Amazon and Google income in Denver, applied to Fort Collins’ own tech sector. Woodward, Inc. — an aerospace and industrial controls manufacturer whose history in Fort Collins parallels CSU’s, having been founded the same year — produces W-2 income that is stable and verifiable, but total compensation packages for senior engineers and program managers may include performance bonuses and profit-sharing that require two-year history and proper averaging to count correctly. Ryan structures qualifying income files for both of these employer profiles routinely and knows which lenders count each component most favorably.
Fort Collins’ pricing reflects the city’s character more directly than most markets. Old Town — historic, walkable, with Victorian and bungalow homes on tree-lined streets, walkable to the restaurants, breweries, and cultural venues that define Fort Collins at its most Fort Collins — commands a premium price per square foot that consistently exceeds the city’s median. Fully restored Old Town homes on premium lots frequently list from $700,000 to over $1 million. Fossil Lake Ranch, in south Fort Collins along the Fossil Creek Reservoir corridor, combines upscale estates with a community clubhouse, top Poudre School District schools, and a neighborhood atmosphere that consistently attracts families from HPE, Woodward, and the university. The Harmony corridor — including Harmony Club’s semi-private golf community — anchors the city’s south side luxury market. And the foothills properties west of town, with Horsetooth Reservoir access and mountain views, represent Fort Collins’ most distinctive estate opportunity: a reservoir lifestyle within 15 minutes of downtown.
Larimer County's 2026 conforming loan limit is $832,750 — the standard national baseline. Fort Collins is not a high-balance county like Denver, Boulder, or the Denver metro group. With a city median home price of approximately $553,000–$580,000 in spring 2026, most Fort Collins buyers are purchasing comfortably within conforming loan territory. Jumbo financing applies to the upper tier of the market — fully restored Old Town properties, Fossil Lake Ranch luxury estates, Harmony Club golf-course homes, and Horsetooth foothills properties — where prices exceed the $832,750 threshold. Buyers at the median are well within conventional loan limits, which gives Fort Collins a meaningful affordability advantage over Denver and Boulder at comparable income levels.
Academic income at CSU has several components that standard lenders routinely mishandle. Your base salary is straightforward. But summer research stipends paid through grant funding rather than the university payroll may not appear on your W-2 in the same way — lenders need to understand how to source and document those amounts correctly. Consulting income that flows through your personal Schedule C adds a self-employment layer. Sabbatical arrangements can affect how lenders average two years of income. And if you and your spouse are both CSU faculty, the dual-income household profile requires a lender who understands that two academic income structures add complexity, not simplicity. Ryan works with CSU faculty buyers specifically and knows which lenders approach academic income most favorably and how to present each income component correctly.
Yes. PVH's ACGME-accredited family medicine residency program — one of eight residents accepted per year — qualifies for physician mortgage loan programs. Residents in this program, like residents at any accredited GME institution, qualify based on enrollment documentation and current stipend rather than requiring two years of attending income history. Student loan balances are treated at the IBR/IDR monthly payment rather than full standard repayment, which meaningfully increases qualifying purchase power. For attendings transitioning into positions at PVH or nearby practices who have signed an employment contract with a start date up to 90 days away, contract-based qualifying allows the loan to close before the first attending paycheck arrives.
A One-Time Close Construction loan in Timnath, Windsor, or any surrounding Fort Collins community combines the construction loan and permanent mortgage into a single closing before the first shovel moves. Your rate is locked at that closing and protected from market movements during the entire build period — whether your home takes 6 months or 14 months to complete. When the builder receives the certificate of occupancy, the loan converts automatically to your permanent mortgage with no second closing, no second appraisal, and no second round of underwriting. Richmond American, Hartford Homes, Landmark Homes Colorado, Meritage Homes, Brightland Homes, and the other active Fort Collins-area builders all work with One-Time Close financing. Ryan's consultation identifies whether your specific community and builder combination is best served by a standard conforming or Jumbo One-Time Close program, and walks through the total project cost — including Larimer County metropolitan district mill levies where applicable — before you sign a builder contract.
I’m here to support you every step of the way. If you’re ready to turn your home financing goals into your new reality, let’s work together.
Originally from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, I moved to Phoenix to attend Arizona State University and have proudly called Phoenix home ever since.
My journey into the mortgage industry began with a friend’s encouragement, who saw how my energy and people-first mindset could make a difference. He was right — I found my calling.
I’ve always embraced what makes me different. With ADHD as my secret weapon, I thrive in fast-paced, detail-heavy environments. I’ve built my career on clear communication, creative problem-solving, and putting clients first, always.
Outside of work, my greatest motivation is my wife and three amazing kids. I’d be honored to help guide you through your lending journey with care, clarity, and commitment.
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