Tag Archive for: appraisal reports

Understanding Fannie Mae’s New Market Conditions Adjustments Policy

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Last spring, Fannie Mae introduced a policy update that had appraisers and lenders talking. But this change was really just a reminder of what’s already standard practice: analyzing and adjusting for market conditions in every appraisal. The new guidance comes with a stronger push for appraisers to document time adjustments when the market demands it (and for the lenders who review their work to expect it).

If you’re not familiar with the term, time adjustments (aka market condition adjustments) account for how a property’s value changes over time—specifically, between the date a comparable property went under contract and the effective date of the appraisal. In a volatile market, those changes can be significant, even over the course of a few weeks.

What Spurred the New Guidance?

We saw real estate prices go crazy during the pandemic. At the time, Fannie Mae flagged a lot of appraisals for not including time adjustments, even when data supported them. When asked why, appraisers often gave the same answer: “When I make a time adjustment, the lender pushes back. It’s a headache I’d rather avoid.”

The problem wasn’t just with appraisers. Lenders, underwriters, and reviewers often saw time adjustments as problematic and unnecessary, so a lot of appraisal reports went out without acknowledging the very real market changes that had occurred.

The new policy is meant to change that mindset. By explicitly stating that market-derived adjustments (including time adjustments) are a necessary appraisal practice, Fannie Mae is sending a clear message to lenders: expect to see them. And to appraisers: you must do the analysis, every time.

What’s in the Updated Selling Guide?

Fannie Mae’s Selling Guide now includes two key additions related to market condition adjustments:

  1. Failure to make market-derived adjustments, including time adjustments, is unacceptable. If the data supports it, it should be in the report. This applies whether the market is rising, falling, or flat.
  2. Comparable sales must be analyzed for changes in market conditions. There’s no exception to this. Appraisers must analyze the data first, then decide if an adjustment is warranted based on that analysis—not the other way around.

The guide also clarifies what constitutes acceptable evidence for a time adjustment: home price indices (HPIs), statistical analyses, paired sales, modeling, or other commonly accepted methods. Bottom line: almost any credible evidence is better than none. Fannie Mae understands that appraisers in high-data urban markets may have sophisticated MLS tools, while appraisers focused on rural or unique-properties may need out-of-the-box approaches.

So, How Do I Support My Adjustments?

A big part of the update focuses on reporting. It’s not enough to simply list “+1%” or “+$70 per square foot” in your grid. Fannie Mae wants to see the math—how you arrived at that figure, what data you used, and why it applies.

The Selling Guide even includes an educational chart for lenders showing how adjustments vary depending on when each comparable went under contract. One comp might require a +2% adjustment, another +1%, and another a -1%—all in the same report—because each was tied to a different point in the market cycle. That’s normal. That’s the job: to analyze resales of the same property over time, isolating value changes that track market fluctuations. If a property sold for $200,000 two years ago and resold for $210,000 without any renovations, the $10,000 increase likely reflects market appreciation. By analyzing several of those resales, appraisers can reconcile a credible percentage adjustment.

Fannie Mae’s position? Yes, that’s an acceptable method. Again, almost any documented, reasoned analysis is better than no analysis.

Can I Use Older Sales?

The question often comes up: can you use a comparable sale older than 12 months? Absolutely. In fact, sometimes an older sale is the best sale, especially for unique properties.

Take the example of a two-story brick farmhouse built in the 1880s. In rural areas, there may be only one truly comparable home within miles, and maybe it last sold five years ago. If its physical and locational characteristics are nearly identical to the subject, that’s a better comp than a newer or dissimilar home. You’d just have to make a market condition adjustment for the five years of change, supported by data.

Another example: imagine two identical houses next door to each other, one of which sold 13 months ago. Common sense says you’d use it, making a time adjustment if necessary, rather than substituting a less comparable property just because of an arbitrary 12-month cutoff.

The Importance of Market Segmentation

Another point to ponder: not all properties in a market move in the same direction on the same schedule. A city’s overall market trend might be flat or declining, but certain segments, like starter homes, could still be in high demand and appreciating rapidly.

During the last housing crisis, large custom homes in some markets declined sharply, while smaller, more affordable homes gained value as buyers downsized. The appraiser’s job is to understand and document what’s happening in the competitive set of properties for the subject, not just in the broad market.

This means the one-unit housing trends box on the 1004 form should reflect the segment that competes directly with the subject, not an average of unrelated property types across the neighborhood. Be specific. Zoom in and see the details.

Don’t Overcomplicate Things

While the policy change stresses that you’ve got to do the analysis every time, Fannie Mae isn’t asking for a PhD dissertation in every report. Basic, common-sense market analysis—clearly summarized and supported—is often enough.

In many cases, choosing strong comps will make the market conditions adjustment much less complicated. If you have three recent, similar sales in the immediate area, the time adjustment may be obvious—or nonexistent. But you still need to document your analysis, even if it leads to a “0%” adjustment. The goal isn’t perfection; it’s credible, supported numbers.

Ultimately, this policy update is about shifting expectations. Fannie Mae wants time adjustments to be seen as normal and expected, not anomalies or headaches. Appraisers are still the local experts. It’s up to them to determine the correct rate of adjustment. Fannie Mae won’t nitpick the exact percentage as long as it’s supported by reasonable evidence.

Conclusion

The bottom line:

  • Do the analysis every time.
  • Document your reasoning.
  • Support your numbers with credible evidence.
  • Don’t ignore a relevant comparable just because it’s more than 12 months old.

And remember: it’s entirely possible to have a positive, a negative, and a zero market condition adjustment in the same report, if that’s what the data supports.

The new Fannie Mae guidance on market condition adjustments is less about changing appraisal methodology and more about reinforcing sound practice. It’s about making analysis and transparency the default, not the exception. For appraisers, this means more than just filling in a percentage. It’s about showing the work, explaining the reasoning, and making sure the report tells the full story of the market the subject property is in.

When the market is moving, buyers, sellers, lenders, and the public deserve appraisals that reflect reality. This policy is a step toward making sure they get them.

This article is adapted from this Appraisal Update Podcast episode from April, 2025.

 

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The New URAR: Finally, Uniform

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Since I started in this profession, we’ve been filling out something called the “Uniform Residential Appraisal Report.” URAR. A tidy acronym, an orderly idea. The problem, of course, is that it wasn’t uniform. Not by a long shot.

There was a form for a single-family house. Another for a condo. Another for a two- to four-unit property. Yet another for a manufactured home. You could practically fill a filing cabinet with the different “uniform” forms. Each one with its own quirks, limitations, and yes, checkboxes. Lots of checkboxes.

The first URAR came into the world in 1986, when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac decided it might be nice if appraisers stopped sending in reports written on the backs of napkins or, worse, dictated into a tape recorder and transcribed by the typist down the hall.

By the mid-1990s, the form had become the backbone of mortgage lending. Every residential loan needed one. The problem was that “residential” meant a lot of things. It meant one house on one lot, sure. But it also meant a condo in Miami Beach, a duplex in Des Moines, or a manufactured home sitting proudly on a quarter-acre halfway between Humboldt and Gadsden.

Each property type came with its own form. Each form came with its own rules. Each rule came with its own set of misunderstandings.

So, what was “uniform” about it? Not much. If you were appraising only single-family homes in subdivisions, you might get away with only using the URAR. But step outside the tidy framework of cookie-cutter houses, and you’d need another form, an addendum, or some cobbled-together franken-design mess to tell the story. I have passed on condo appraisals in the past just to avoid dealing with the condo form.

The new URAR adapts to our needs. If the property has two units, the report expands. If it’s a condo, different sections appear. If it’s a manufactured home, the right data fields show up automatically. You no longer have to select from a menu of forms; the report builds itself around the property you’re analyzing.

It’s flexible, but structured. It’s detailed, but readable.

For the first time, lenders, regulators, and appraisers are all looking at the same thing. Not a PDF that tells a story one way for the reader and another for the database, but a unified, structured document that preserves the narrative and the data in one place.

For too long, we’ve treated appraisal as a stack of paperwork. The new URAR reframes it as a flow of data and analysis. The appraiser’s job is not to fill in blanks; it’s to interpret reality and record it in a way that others can trust, read, and reuse.

For too long, we’ve treated appraisal as a stack of paperwork. The new URAR reframes it as a flow of data and analysis. The appraiser’s job is not to fill in blanks; it’s to interpret reality and record it in a way that others can trust, read, and reuse.

Because a single-family home in Denver and a fourplex in Detroit don’t look alike, but they share the same fundamentals: location, condition, quality, and market forces. The new framework recognizes that and organizes it accordingly.

The story is still ours to tell, but the structure lets that story travel farther.

If, like me, you’ve been doing this a while, you might be tired of hearing about “big changes.” Every few years, someone promises revolution and delivers another PDF.

This one’s different.

The URAR redesign isn’t about forms, it’s about how we communicate. The goal isn’t to make the job harder; it’s to make the work more meaningful. The new report gives us room to explain, to narrate, to analyze. The structured data captures what’s measurable. The commentary captures what’s human. It’s a marriage of logic and judgment, of code and craft. Lenders get cleaner data. Regulators get consistency. Reviewers get clarity. Borrowers get transparency.

But the real winners might be the appraisers who adapt early. Because this isn’t just a technical update. It’s the new language and grammar of valuation. And those who learn to speak it fluently will find themselves more valuable than ever.

When you strip away the noise, the new URAR is about credibility. It says: here’s what the property is, here’s how I know, and here’s the data to back it up.

That’s what investors want. That’s what lenders need. And that’s what we’ve always tried to deliver, but with a mishmash of forms and addenda, and a mind-numbing complexity in presentation.

So yes, the new URAR finally earns its name. After all these years, “uniform” means something.

One report. One language. One process for every residential property type.

It’s the same notion we started with in 1986, but this time, we’ve got the technology and the discipline to make it work.

And maybe, if we get it right, the next generation of appraisers won’t have to explain what “uniform” was supposed to mean in the first place.

 

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Thinking Upstream

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Bryan shares a story about how a little extra forethought might head off major headaches down the road.

The Trainee

Recently, my trainee Kelsey told me she had an appraisal ready for me to review. I asked her about the two busy roads that abutted the property. “Did you make an adjustment for that?” I said.

“No, I didn’t,” she said.

“I wouldn’t have either,” I said. “But did you make a comment about it?” She did not.

And then I suggested that we probably should. “And now I’m going to tell you why.”

And so I told her a story about one of the very first appraisers I helped who had a complaint filed against her.

The Complaint

This is the story: I had an appraiser contact me, and she’d had a complaint filed. The reviewer alleged that she did not analyze and report that the subject property’s area, the whole subdivision really, backed up to a railroad track. And she called me and told me about it. And I said, “Stop talking. Let me talk.”

“If you missed it,” I said, “if you didn’t realize that the property backed up to a railroad, and you didn’t analyze that it could impact the marketability, you need to raise your hand and say, ‘I missed it. I made a mistake.’ You need to ‘fess up to that and accept the consequences, if there are any, and use it as a learning experience, and move on.”

That’s what we need to do. We need to be honest. And we need to tell what we did or didn’t do. When we make a mistake, we need to have the courage and the honor in saying, “I made a mistake. I’m human.” Because we all make mistakes. No one’s perfect. Practice makes better. There’s no such thing as perfection. Practice doesn’t make perfect.

On the other hand, if you did know that rail was there, if you did analyze that, if you did opine that there was no adverse condition as a consequence of that subject’s proximity to that rail, I don’t think you did anything wrong.

The Argument

Keep in mind that all of her comparable sales were in the immediate area. So if the subject suffered from some negative influence because of the nearby railroad track, all of her comps would have suffered a similar influence. Her value would be unchanged. She wouldn’t have made any adjustment. So really, we’re just talking about a reporting issue.

Now, maybe I would have handled it differently. Maybe the members of the regulatory commission would have handled it differently. Maybe the investigator would have handled it differently. However, we’re not here today to discuss whether this individual used best practices. We’re here to discuss whether the person met the minimum requirements of USPAP.

You see, if we talk about the pre-printed form, under the site section, it says, “Are there any adverse conditions or external factors, yes or no?” Well, in her heart, if she didn’t believe that had any impact on the subject, if she analyzed that and said there was no issue, she doesn’t have any obligation to report anything. The obligation is to report if it does have an adverse effect.

One of the things I argued on behalf of this client was, if you think she’s trying to hide that this property backed up to a rail, why didn’t she white out the railroad on her location map? The map clearly showed a railroad there. She wasn’t trying to hide it. She just didn’t think it had a negative impact.

Her case was dismissed. What I told her was that in the future, she could avoid this problem very easily. All she would have to do is say, “Hey, client. The subject property, the subdivision, backs up to a railroad track. I’ve analyzed this, and in my professional opinion, I don’t think there’s any negative impact.” That way, she tells the world, the client, that she didn’t miss it. She knows it’s there, she just doesn’t think it has an impact.

The Moral

The moral of this story is, if you think ahead, you can put this fire out before it begins. If she had said, “Hey, everybody, there’s a railroad track back there, but it’s not impacting the marketability,” then no one could have pointed at her and said, “She missed it.”

Now, you can argue about whether or not the railroad affected value. That’s a matter of opinion.

So what I suggested to Kelsey was this, in an effort to head off any problems, why don’t we say that the subject property backs to Carter Road, side to Southtown? Both of which are somewhat well-traveled, but an analysis of this revealed no negative impact. Because there’s areas of Carter Road that do affect marketability but up here, not so much. At least, that’s our opinion.

I was going to buy a house one time, and I thought, “I’ll get a good deal because it backs up to a bypass.” The bypass sat back a ways, and I thought, “That’s the Owensboro Beltline! That’s got to have a negative impact. I’ll be able to negotiate a good price on this.” No. It didn’t appear to impact the price at all. I wasn’t able to buy that house.

I get it. This is a case-by-case issue. You’ve got to look at your market, that segment of the market, and analyze your data to see whether there’s a market reaction or not.

The Dead?

What if your house backs up to a cemetery? (And by the way, what’s the difference between a cemetery and a graveyard? What does “Saved by the Bell” mean? To get the answers, you’ll have to listen to the episode!)

Either way, acknowledge the cemetery and analyze whether it has a negative impact. I certainly wouldn’t mind the quiet neighbors, but other people might be creeped out and might not want to buy that house.

The Fix

Just a thought: Let your client know, “I’m aware that the property is adjacent to a cemetery, or a well-traveled road, or a railroad track. And here is my analysis of whether or not that thing affects the value.” That way, nobody can point a finger and say that you missed it. That way, you can say you noticed it and then offer your opinion about the impact of its proximity.

External obsolescence — a loss of value caused by something outside of the property lines — isn’t something you can fix. All you can do is acknowledge it and analyze its impact on the property.

Be transparent about your thinking and your analysis, and you’ll head off a lot of problems before they ever arise.

Want more like this?

Check out Bryan’s webinar (below) about covering your appraisal (CYA) and his Cover Your Appraisal course at Appraiser eLearning.

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