New USPAP Q&As published March 6, 2025

[Joe Flacco]

Same with Danny Wiley. I would love to see it.

Let's see these USPAP compliant URARs with quantitative adjustments for all differences with the evidence.

Just show me one with your signatures on it.

 

[NC Appraising]

I remember my first love. I told her that I had experience. Next day she wouldn't return my call.

You gotta show your work. Just saying you have experience...the truth will come out when you are forced to show your work.

Trust me. Ghosted.

 

[Mark K]

USPAP does not require an appraiser to "prove" the amount of an adjustment or the lack of an adjustment. What USPAP requires is that an adjsutment (or no adjustment) is credible and based on accepted methodologies. At the end of the day, the amount of any adjsutment (or lack of an adjustment) in an appraisal report is not a provable fact, but is the expression of the appraiser's opinion and that opinion needs to be based on a credible analysis.

OK, lets change the word 'prove' to 'support'. If you have to analyze and support an adjustment shouldn't you also have to include an analysis and support for the lack of adjustment? Or is experience and knowledge sufficient for the lack thereof? "0" is a number.

 

[CGinMN]

Correct, I don't think there is any such thing as a qualitative adjsutment to a comparable sale price. However, that does not mean that I do not believe that qualitative analysis is not important and valid or should not be applied in the appraisal process. Also, I will freely admit that sometimes the support for a quantitative adjsutment to a comparable sale is based in whole or in part on qualitative analysis, however, an adjsutment made to a comparable sale price (whether expressed as a dolar amoutn of a percentage of the sale price) is, by definition, a quatitative adjustment to that sale price.

In your previously provided example that you assert is a qualitativfe adjsusmtent, simply adding a plus or a minus after the comparable sale price (i.e. $320,000+) is not an actual adjustment of the sale price in my view. Either way, the sale price is still $320,000 and all that adding the + or - after the sale price indicates is that the appraiser views some attribute of that comparable sale as being inferior or superior compared to the subject property. In other words, you are not actually adjsuting the sale price when you do this, you are simply grouping the subject proeprty and comparable sales into different categories.

If you look in the index of the Appriasal Institute's The Appraisal of Real Estate, there is a reaosn that you will find refences listed for quantitative adjustments, but no reference for qualitative adjustments (becuase they don't exist). However, you will find a reference for qualiative analysis.

This also why is you look up the term "qualitative adjustment" in the The Dictionary or Real Estate Appraisal you will find that the dictionary states that the use of this term is a "misnomer" precisely because an adjustment is not made:


View attachment 97580

Far be it from to disagree with this academics, but in this case I would have to. So, to summarize that position, an opinion of value can be expressed as a specific amount ($x), as a range of numbers($x-$y), or as a relationship to a numerical benchmark(>$x), but an opinion of contributory value must only be a specific amount ($1,000) or a range of numbers ($0-$1,000), but it can never be a relationship to a numerical benchmark (>$0).

Same with Danny Wiley. I would love to see it.

Let's see these USPAP compliant URARs with quantitative adjustments for all differences with the evidence.

Just show me one with your signatures on it.

Easy to provide opinions when you don't wear the hat. I don't wear the hat anymore, but I haven't yet forgotten what wearing the hat entails.

 

[George Hatch]

My guess is that the reason DW is saying that is because Fannie/Freddie have specific instructions for how to use the SC grid, and "make no adjustments" doesn't meet their criteria.

You don't have to be pumping out 10 URARs a week to remember what the disclosures in the forms are saying. Like this one:


or this one, which includes the SR1 development as well as the SR2 reporting of that development


Say what you do, do what you say; because that's your own signature on the bottom line.

 

[CGinMN]

Do the GSEs put out the USPAP Q&As now?

 

[Fernando]

When you put your "experience" into the report and reader doesn't question your adjustments, the appraiser has done a good report and acceptable for the reader.
When reader questions the adjustments, the valuation is in question, thus need further proof.

 

[alebrewer]

Do the GSEs put out the USPAP Q&As now?

I mean, haven't they always?

 

[timd354]

OK, lets change the word 'prove' to 'support'. If you have to analyze and support an adjustment shouldn't you also have to include an analysis and support for the lack of adjustment? Or is experience and knowledge sufficient for the lack thereof? "0" is a number.

The simple answer is that, yes, you would have to have support for zero adjustment in cases where there is a signifcant difference between the subject proeprty and a comp regarding an important proeprty attibute. Here is are some easy examples that I see all of the time:

subject property is located across the street from a commercial buidling, the comparable sale is on a residential street nowhere near any potentially negative external infleunce and the appraiser makes no adjsutment for location or view
Subject property is on a 1 acre lot and the comparable sale is on a 2 acre lot and no adjustment is made for site.

I am not saying that an adjustment is warranted in either one of the above cases in all markets, but the appraiser should have analyzed these differences and have support for the lack of an adjustment in these types of cases that consists of something more than their experience.

 

[George Hatch]

Do the GSEs put out the USPAP Q&As now?

The GSEs are just an example. They're telling appraisers what they consider to be significant to their decision making, "meaningful". I think that's actually just a tangent to the main topic of the Q&A

As I read it, the bigger point of the Q&A is the distinction between "objective" (via analysis) vs "subjective" (via my lived truth). "Objective" is part of the definition of an appraiser whereas "subjective" is the allegation that gets tied to the appraisers-r-racists trope. Among other complaints.