The New Appraisal Report Explained: UAD 3.6 Changes for Buyers, Sellers and Realtors

The old appraisal forms were retired on November 2, 2026. If you are buying, selling, listing or refinancing a home with a conventional loan, the appraisal report you receive now looks nothing like the one you are used to.

The change is a reporting change, not a value change — but the details affect real conversations with clients, and a few of them are worth knowing before your next appraisal is ordered.

One dynamic report replaced a shelf of forms

The legacy forms — the 1004, the condo 1073, the 2–4 unit 1025, the 2055 and the rest — are retired. In their place is a single Uniform Residential Appraisal Report built on the UAD 3.6 data standard. The report is generated from structured data and expands or contracts to fit the property being appraised, so a condo report and a duplex report look completely different from each other.

Sections follow the property: site, improvements, additional structures, sales comparison approach, rental analysis when it applies, and reconciliation.

Gross living area is gone

This is the change that starts the most arguments at a kitchen table. Following the ANSI standard, the report separates a home into four area categories:

• Finished area above grade
• Finished area below grade
• Unfinished area above grade
• Unfinished area below grade

A finished walkout or basement level is reported on its own below-grade line instead of being folded into a single figure or dropped entirely. None of the four numbers is guaranteed to match the square footage on the MLS sheet or the county record.

Appraisers now record more — and state the impact

Room-level data, accessory dwelling units, outbuildings, site influences and energy features all have dedicated fields. Each recorded feature carries a stated impact — adverse, neutral or beneficial — along with the appraiser's written commentary.

In the official sample scenario published by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a busy bordering road is itemized as an adverse influence with an explanation about traffic density, and a hazard zone is listed with its own impact note. That level of transparency is new, and it cuts both ways: documented improvements have more places to be recognized, and unrepaired issues have more places to be explained.

What did not change

• The appraiser's independent opinion of value still comes from the same comparable sales and market analysis.
• Your appraisal contingency language does not need to change.
• The playbook when a value comes in under the contract price is the same as it has always been.
• The appraisal is still ordered by the lender and paid for by the borrower at closing.

What to do differently this quarter

1. Give the appraiser information. Permits, invoices, a scope of work for renovations, ADU specifications and outbuilding details are all fields the new report asks for.
2. Protect the calendar. During the transition appraisers are entering more data in new software. A few extra days in the contingency window costs nothing.
3. Be precise about below-grade and unfinished space in the listing and in the conversation with the buyer.
4. Expect unfamiliar-looking reports for a few months — a rating that looks lower is not automatically a lower value.

Which loans this affects

The November 2, 2026 mandate applies to conventional loans sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. FHA has begun accepting UAD 3.6 reports without setting a mandatory date, and VA and USDA set their own timelines. Confirm the requirement for your specific program before you rely on it.

The bottom line

UAD 3.6 changes how appraisal information is collected, organized and delivered. It does not change how value is determined. The agents and buyers who do well during this transition are the ones who know the new report's structure well enough to spot a problem early — and who have a mortgage professional reviewing the numbers with them before the appraisal is ordered, not after.