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There is no longer one answer to the question of how a lender establishes the value of a house. There are five, they are not interchangeable, and the differences come down to who looked at the property and who is responsible for the opinion.
Last reviewed August 2026
Almost every sale in Fort Worth has a financed buyer, and almost every financed buyer triggers some form of collateral review. What has changed over the last several years is that a traditional appraisal is no longer the only path. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now offer a range of options, and the loan file is routed to one of them by an automated underwriting engine based on the loan characteristics and the agency's own data on the property.
Running from least appraiser involvement to most: value acceptance, where no appraisal is obtained at all. Value acceptance plus property data, where someone visits the property and records data but no one develops an opinion of value. Hybrid appraisal, where a third party collects the data on site and a licensed or certified appraiser develops the opinion of value from it. Desktop appraisal, where the appraiser develops an opinion of value without anyone being sent to the property for the appraisal. And the traditional appraisal, where the appraiser personally inspects and personally values.
Value acceptance is an offer from the agency to accept the lender's submitted value, which is generally the contract price on a purchase or the estimated value on a refinance, without an appraisal. Fannie Mae states plainly that when the offer is exercised, an appraisal is not obtained for the transaction.
The terminology changed for a reason. Fannie Mae introduced value acceptance alongside the older term appraisal waiver in Selling Guide Announcement SEL-2023-02, saying the new language better reflects the actual process, with the intention of moving to value acceptance alone as the market adopted it. Waiver implied something was skipped. Acceptance is more accurate: the agency is affirmatively accepting a value based on its own analytics, drawn from a database of millions of prior appraisals through Collateral Underwriter combined with proprietary models.
The offer is delivered through the automated underwriting system, Desktop Underwriter on the Fannie side. It is not something a borrower requests, a lender negotiates or an appraiser influences. Eligibility is bounded, and the boundaries have moved more than once, so I am not going to publish an LTV table here that could be stale by the time you read it. Check the current fact sheet linked below.
The point homeowners consistently miss: value acceptance is a lending decision about the agency's risk, not a home inspection and not a statement about the condition of your house. Fannie Mae is clear that the lender must order an appraisal if it has reason to believe one is warranted, and the lender represents that the data submitted is complete and accurate. Nobody was sent to look at the roof.
This is the middle option that confuses the most people, because a person shows up at the house and the homeowner reasonably concludes an appraisal happened. It did not.
Under value acceptance plus property data, the agency waives the appraisal but requires current, observed information about the property. Fannie Mae describes it as extending value acceptance benefits to more borrowers while identifying current subject property characteristics including condition. A trained and vetted third party or an appraiser performs an interior and exterior observation, and Fannie Mae states explicitly that the data collection does not involve the development of an opinion of value.
So the visitor measures, photographs, records room counts and condition, and produces an ANSI-compliant floor plan. Fannie Mae's property data collection guidance describes a full interior and exterior observation with roughly 40 to 60 high-quality photographs. That data has to conform to the Uniform Property Dataset and is delivered to the agency through a property data API. The lender remains responsible for verifying the accuracy of the property description and the completeness of the data.
No appraiser signs an opinion of value in this scenario, because there is no opinion of value to sign. If you ask me what your house appraised for after a value acceptance plus property data transaction, the honest answer is that it did not.
Fannie Mae's guidance says data collectors can include appraisers, real estate agents, photographers or home inspectors. They must pass annual background checks, complete training, hold the knowledge needed to collect data competently, comply with fair lending laws, and deliver results unaffected by personal bias. There is a separate set of Property Data Collector Independence Requirements, and a real estate agent cannot collect data on a property where they have other involvement in the transaction.
What the collector is not doing is exercising appraisal judgment. They are not reconciling comparable sales, not making market adjustments, not forming a value conclusion, and not performing a home inspection in the sense a buyer would hire one. A data collector recording that a water heater exists is not the same as an inspector telling you it is at end of life.
A hybrid appraisal, sometimes called bifurcated because the work is split, is a real appraisal with a divided workflow. Fannie Mae's Selling Guide states that property data collection and the appraisal report are separate assignments and may be performed by different people, and that if the appraiser does not perform the collection, the lender must share the property data collection with the appraiser at the time of engagement.
The trained and vetted third party goes to the property. The appraiser receives that data, relies on it along with other sources to identify property characteristics including condition, analyzes the market, selects comparable sales, makes adjustments and develops and signs the opinion of value. The effective date of a hybrid appraisal is the date the appraiser arrives at the opinion of value, not the date of the site visit.
The minimum scope of work includes the appraiser's consideration of interior and exterior property data collected by that third party, the data must comply with the Uniform Property Dataset, and a floor plan conforming to the ANSI standard is required. Under UAD 2.6 the hybrid was reported on Form 1004 Hybrid or Form 1073 Hybrid. Under UAD 3.6 it is reported in the redesigned URAR, with the assignment type, collection method, collection date and the type of workforce that collected the data recorded in the report.
Eligibility is narrower than people assume. Fannie Mae's hybrid appraisal policy limits it to existing one-unit properties including condominium and PUD units, and excludes two- to four-unit properties, cooperatives, manufactured homes, proposed construction and manually underwritten loans, among others. It is offered when the lender receives a hybrid eligibility message from the automated underwriting system.
The honest tension in a hybrid is straightforward: my value conclusion depends in part on observations I did not personally make. I still own the conclusion and I still sign it. That is why the identity and training of the collector, and the quality of what they sent me, are not administrative details.
A desktop appraisal is an appraisal in which nobody is dispatched to the property for the appraisal at all. Fannie Mae's Selling Guide is blunt about it: the minimum scope of work for the desktop report does not include a current inspection of the subject property or comparable sales by the appraiser.
The appraiser builds the property description from public records, multiple listing service data, prior listings, and information supplied by parties to the transaction, and a floor plan is required. The appraiser may accept data, photographs and floor plans from a party with a financial interest in the transaction, but must verify what they receive through disinterested sources. Notably, the report cannot be made subject to verification and cannot lean on extraordinary assumptions, which means an appraiser who cannot develop credible results from the available data should not be completing a desktop assignment.
Desktop eligibility is also narrow. Fannie Mae restricts it to one-unit properties, principal residences, purchase transactions, loans at or below 90 percent loan-to-value with an eligible automated underwriting recommendation, and excludes refinances, second homes, investment properties, condominiums, cooperatives and manufactured homes, among others.
In a traditional appraisal I personally inspect the property to the applicable scope, measure it, observe condition and quality, research the market, verify and analyze comparable sales, make supportable adjustments, reconcile, and sign the report in compliance with USPAP. One certified appraiser is accountable for the entire chain from observation to conclusion.
That matters most where the property or the assignment is not routine. Automated models and data collection protocols work best on properties that look like a lot of other properties. A 1920s house in a Fort Worth historic district with a converted attic and a detached quarters, a property on acreage with outbuildings, a home with unpermitted additions, an unusual site, or a property in a thin market with few recent sales is exactly where judgment does the work that a model cannot.
It also matters when the appraisal is not for a loan at all. Estate and date-of-death work, divorce, tax matters, litigation support and private pre-listing appraisals are not agency transactions, so value acceptance and the hybrid options are irrelevant. Those assignments are traditional appraisals by nature.
I should be clear about what I cannot tell you. I cannot promise that any particular loan will receive a value acceptance offer, that a hybrid or desktop option will be available, or that a lender or AMC will accept any given approach. Those are agency and lender decisions driven by the loan file and the automated system, and they are outside my control and outside my influence by design.
First, ask which product you are actually getting, by name. The answer determines whether an opinion of value exists, who developed it, and what was observed. A seller's agent who assumes an appraisal is coming and instead gets a data collector, or the reverse, has planned around the wrong timeline.
Second, do not treat any of these as a home inspection. None of them are. A data collector documents. An appraiser values. A home inspector evaluates systems and components for a buyer. Three different jobs, three different standards, and buying a house on the strength of one when you needed another is a recurring and expensive mistake.
Fourth, if you are preparing a property for sale, prepare it the same way regardless. Accessible attic and crawl spaces, clear utility areas, working utilities, documentation for permitted work and finished space, and an accurate account of what has been added or converted. That information helps whoever shows up, in whatever role they are filling.
These programs change. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac revise eligibility, terminology and scope with some regularity, and the UAD 3.6 transition is changing how each of these assignment types is reported. Verify current requirements against the agency pages below before you rely on them for a live transaction.
Under value acceptance plus property data, a trained third party or appraiser observes the property, but Fannie Mae states the data collection does not involve the development of an opinion of value. Someone came to the house. No one appraised it.
A property data collector records characteristics, photographs, and produces an ANSI-compliant floor plan under the Uniform Property Dataset. They are not evaluating the condition of systems and components for a buyer. If you want that, hire a home inspector separately.
Last reviewed August 2026. Eligibility criteria, loan-to-value limits and terminology in these programs are revised regularly by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Confirm current requirements against the sources below.
It is the current name for it. Fannie Mae introduced value acceptance alongside the term appraisal waiver in Selling Guide Announcement SEL-2023-02, stating the new term better reflects the actual process, with the intention of eventually using value acceptance alone. The mechanics are the same: no appraisal is obtained for the transaction.
No. The offer is generated by the automated underwriting system based on the loan characteristics and the agency's own analytics. It is not requested, negotiated or influenced by the borrower, the agent or the appraiser. Nobody can promise you one.
That is most likely value acceptance plus property data. A trained and vetted data collector or appraiser performed an interior and exterior observation and submitted the data, but no opinion of value was developed and no appraisal report exists. Your lender can confirm which product was used on your file.
The appraiser. The third party collects property data as a separate assignment, then the appraiser relies on that data along with other sources to identify property characteristics and condition, analyzes the market, and develops and signs the opinion of value. The effective date is the date the appraiser reaches that opinion, not the date of the site visit.
Generally not. In a hybrid, a trained third party performs the interior and exterior data collection and the appraiser works from it. In a desktop appraisal, Fannie Mae states the minimum scope of work does not include a current inspection of the subject property or the comparable sales by the appraiser at all.
No. Eligibility is limited and specific. Hybrid appraisals under Fannie Mae policy are limited to existing one-unit properties and exclude two- to four-unit properties, cooperatives, manufactured homes and proposed construction, among others. Desktop appraisals are further limited to one-unit principal residence purchases within stated loan-to-value and underwriting parameters.
Yes. Condition is exactly what the observation is capturing, and Fannie Mae describes value acceptance plus property data as identifying current subject property characteristics including condition. That information goes into the file and into a hybrid appraiser's analysis.
It is not your choice, and it is not mine. The automated underwriting system routes the file. What you can and should do is ask your lender which product is being used, so you know whether an opinion of value will exist and who is developing it.
Written fee quote, typically within one business hour. Questions about anything in this article are free, whether or not they turn into an assignment.