Fannie’s new Collateral Underwriter (CU) FAQs updated – not dated but available on Feb. 25
Why does Fannie keep saying appraisals there will be minimal, or no effect, on appraisal turn times? The real estate agents are worried about delaying closings.
For now, since few appraisers are receiving warnings, the underwriters appear to be slowing down the processing as they are responsible for decided which, if any, warnings to send to appraisers, after reading the 30+ page appraisal reports.
These FAQs mostly clarify what they have said before, but there is some interesting new information.
The first two pages has the new FAQs updates,
Here is some of the new info:
– Fannie Mae does not instruct or suggest to lenders that they ask the appraiser to address all or any of the 20 comparables that are provided by CU for most appraisals.
– (Underwriters) Carefully review the appraisal report before seeking additional clarification from the appraiser based on CU findings.
– Fannie Mae expects lenders to use human due diligence in combination with the CU findings, and will actively follow up with lenders who are reported to be asking appraisers to change their reports based on CU findings without any further due diligence by the lender.
– Fannie Mae encourages lenders to carefully review the appraisal report – including all commentary – before seeking clarification from the appraiser. Don’t assume the appraiser is wrong just because you see a CU message. Taking messages or alternative sales at face value and simply asking your appraiser to address them is neither effective nor efficient. CU is intended to supplement a lender’s human due diligence. After completing a thorough review, lenders should be able to have constructive dialogue with appraisers to resolve specific appraisal questions or concerns. Lenders should not, however, make demands or provide
instructions to the appraiser based solely on automated feedback.
It is also available on the main CU link at www.fanniemae.com/singlefamily/collateral-underwriter
Amen to Dave Eaton’s comments. The CU requirement is ridulous. Appraisers need to form a union and approach the problem in masses. The government is out of control on their demands. Appraisals before UAD and CU were more accurate to finding the actual cash value of properties.
This CU program is everything the appraisal industry predicted it would be. Because underwriters and AMCs can not answer questions raised by the CU they just send the results back to the appraiser to answer. And because they don’t read the entire report they often don’t know that the answer is already in the report. This whole process is a waste of time and appears that FNMA, along with the lenders, just want the appraisers out of the process so they can just use some automated program (AVM, etc) instead to assess any risk.