Do You Want Appraisal Waivers, Faster Turn Times, and Less Risk?
Then UAD 3.6 Should Already Be on Your Agenda.
Do you want more appraisal waivers?
Do you want appraisals completed faster, with better accuracy and quality?
Do you want less liability and risk tied to appraisal data flowing through your organization?
It’s hard to imagine anyone in mortgage answering “no” to any of those questions.
And yet, many lenders are still treating the Uniform Appraisal Dataset (UAD) 3.6 as something to deal with later. A future compliance task. A distant operational lift. A “we’ll get there when we have to” initiative.
That mindset is already outdated.
Because UAD 3.6 is no longer theoretical.
On November 14, 2025, a residential appraiser in North Carolina successfully submitted the first ever UAD 3.6 appraisal through the Uniform Collateral Data Portal. The report was completed using SFREP’s Appraise-It Pro software, delivered through AIMSdashboard, and accepted by the lender, North State Bank, a community bank based in Raleigh, NC.
It worked.
No fire drills.No system failure.No industry meltdown.
Just a real appraisal, in production, moving cleanly through modernized rails.
That moment matters, not because it was first, but because it removed the final excuse. UAD 3.6 is no longer a concept. It’s operational.
And now the question every lender and originator should be asking is simple:
Are we ready?
For context, it’s worth briefly revisiting how we got here.
The Uniform Appraisal Dataset 3.6 is part of the broader Uniform Mortgage Data Program (UMDP), overseen by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and jointly implemented by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. UMDP was created to standardize how mortgage data is collected, transmitted, and analyzed across the industry. It is the reason we can talk about consistent loan application data, standardized collateral data, and increasingly automated decisioning at scale.
UAD 3.6 is the next evolution of that work.
It replaces a patchwork of legacy appraisal forms, the familiar 1004, 1073, and others, with a single, dynamic Uniform Residential Appraisal Report (URAR). Instead of selecting a form number up front, the appraisal is driven by property characteristics and inspection type. The report adapts conditionally, displaying only the fields that matter for that assignment.
Under the hood, the data is structured XML aligned to the MISMO 3.6.2 reference model. That alignment is not incidental. It enables standardized data collection, better automation, cleaner integration with lender systems, and far more reliable downstream analysis.
This is not just a new format. It is a re-architecture of how appraisal data is created, validated, transmitted, and consumed.
And importantly, it is not happening in isolation.
FHFA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac have been clear about the timeline. A Limited Production Period began in September 2025. Broad production opens January 26, 2026. Full transition is required by November 2, 2026. FHA has announced plans to adopt UAD 3.6 in Spring 2026, extending the impact well beyond conventional loans.
The train has left the station. The only variable left is how prepared each lender will be when volume, scrutiny, and expectations increase.
What’s often missed in conversations about UAD 3.6 is that this is not just an appraisal department issue. It is an enterprise issue.
Ordering, procurement, reporting, quality control, storage, underwriting, risk, and compliance are all implicated.
MISMO’s publication of the Appraisal Procurement Dataset Specification in June 2025 quietly solved a problem the industry has lived with for decades: appraisal ordering tied to legacy form numbers. With UAD 3.6, those form numbers are being retired.
Appraisals can now be ordered using standardized data attributes aligned with the same vocabulary used in the appraisal report itself.
That alignment matters.
It reduces translation layers.It removes ambiguity.It creates a clean, end-to-end data thread from order to decision.
This didn’t happen by accident. It happened because the industry funded shared infrastructure.
The Innovation Investment Fee (IIF) exists for moments exactly like this. Not for marketing. Not for theory. But for the hard, unglamorous work of building common rails that everyone can run on. UAD 3.6 is a tangible return on that collective investment.
And we’re already seeing what becomes possible when those rails are in place.
Consider what structured, standardized appraisal data actually unlocks.
Early implementations show meaningful time savings. AI-enabled platforms like Aivre report appraisers saving multiple hours per report and reducing revision rates by nearly 30 percent, while maintaining full professional oversight. AMCs like Class Valuation and ServiceLink are preparing their panels and platforms not by rebuilding from scratch, but by extending existing systems to support the new URAR and data payload.
The appraisal ZIP file itself now contains not just a PDF and XML, but all photos, exhibits, and metadata in one package. Submission Summary Reports can be delivered as machine-readable JSON, allowing rules-based quality control to surface issues instantly rather than through manual review.
For lenders, that translates into fewer back-and-forth conditions, faster review cycles, and clearer risk signals earlier in the process.
For risk and compliance teams, it means better consistency, stronger audit trails, and fewer subjective interpretation gaps.
And for mortgage originators, it has very real borrower-facing implications.
Originators live and die by certainty.
Certainty of outcome.Certainty of timing.Certainty of experience.
Appraisals have long been a source of friction in that equation. Delays, revisions,
surprises, and inconsistencies all erode borrower confidence and extend cycle times.
UAD 3.6 doesn’t eliminate appraisals. But it materially improves how appraisal data behaves inside the system.
Cleaner data enables more confident collateral risk assessment. That, in turn, supports greater use of appraisal waivers where appropriate. And anyone who has closed loans knows exactly what appraisal waivers mean for cost, speed, and borrower satisfaction.
Waivers are not magic. They depend on trust in the data ecosystem. The more consistent, transparent, and analyzable the underlying appraisal data becomes, the more confidently lenders and the GSEs can rely on automated collateral risk models.
This is where the downstream ROI becomes tangible.
Faster closings.Lower per-loan costs.Fewer surprises late in the process.A smoother borrower experience.
Those benefits don’t appear overnight. But they also don’t appear at all if lenders wait until the deadline to engage.
There is a quiet risk in delay that deserves to be called out.
Lenders who treat UAD 3.6 as a last-minute compliance exercise will likely find themselves carrying hidden costs long after the transition date. Manual reviews. Exception handling. Dual processes. Vendor misalignment. Internal confusion about “why this feels harder than it should.”
By contrast, lenders engaging now are using the Limited Production Period for what it was intended to be: a learning window. Testing systems. Pressing vendors on readiness. Training teams. Understanding how appraisal data will look, move, and behave in the future state.
Service providers across the ecosystem are already signaling readiness. Appraisers like Adam Winstead, who completed the first UAD 3.6 submission, have publicly noted that the process was far easier than anticipated and removed anxiety about falling behind. Platforms like SFREP, AIMSdashboard, Aivre, Clear Capital, Class Valuation, and ServiceLink are not waiting for mandates to begin preparing their users.
The ecosystem is moving.
The question is whether every lender is moving with it.
Which brings us to the only call to action that really matters.
Ask your leadership team a direct question:
Are we prepared to adopt UAD 3.6?
Then ask the follow-ups that matter just as much:
What systems are ready today?Which partners have demonstrated readiness in Limited Production?What is our internal timeline for testing, training, and deployment?
Because UAD 3.6 is not a distant regulatory event. It is a near-term operational reality with real implications for cost, risk, speed, and borrower experience.
FHFA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac have made the direction clear. The industry has already done the hard work to build the infrastructure. The returns on that investment are beginning to show.
The only remaining variable is leadership.
Waiting will not make this easier.Preparation will.
The lenders who act now will experience UAD 3.6 as an advantage.Those who don’t will experience it as friction.
The choice is already on the table.