In November, the appraisal becomes data. The CMA stays a document.

On November 2, the residential appraisal report stops being a form. Most of the coverage so far has been about the calendar: Who can still submit under the old standard, what happens to collateral risk scoring during the reduced functionality window and which approvals a seller needs from which agency? Underneath the compliance timeline, there is a change that does not affect lenders at all. It affects the document that arrives weeks before the appraisal and sets the number everything else is measured against. Start with what the agencies themselves say they are building. Fannie Mae describes the goal as a single data-driven, flexible and dynamic appraisal report for any residential property type, aligned with the industry standard MISMO reference model. Freddie Mac puts the same change more bluntly: The data that describes the subject property drives the appraisal report, not a form type or number. Read that carefully, because it is not a formatting update. A form is a picture of an analysis. A structured dataset aligned to a reference model is the analysis itself, in fields, where every element of comparison is a discrete and inspectable thing rather than a number typed into a ce...