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The UAD 3.6 deadline is here. Has anyone accepted your buyer’s appraisal order?
“The appraisal has been ordered.” If you’ve spent years hearing that from loan officers, you may already be telling your buyer to expect a call to schedule the inspection.
On LinkedIn, Joe McNeese III described what happened in rural Mississippi when his lending team sent a UAD 3.6 order to appraisers it had worked with for years. None was ready to take it.
“The only appraiser who accepted it was 70 miles away.”
McNeese said the fee was $1,300. A comparable appraisal in that market had typically cost around $600. The house hadn’t moved. The distance the lender had to go to find someone willing to appraise it had changed.
November 2, 2026, is the deadline for new appraisal reports submitted to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s Uniform Collateral Data Portal under the redesigned Uniform Appraisal Dataset, or UAD 3.6. Some lenders can still use 2.6 under a temporary exception. Whichever format applies to your buyer’s loan, ask the lender one more question when the order goes out.
“Has an appraiser accepted this specific order and committed to a delivery date, or are you still looking for someone to take it?”
An order can still be out for bids
Think of a Tuesday order with a requested Friday delivery. If the lender or appraisal management company is still collecting bids on Thursday, Friday was only the date it asked for. No appraiser promised it. Ask the loan officer to confirm acceptance, the agreed fee, and the date the appraiser committed to. If the order is still open, agree on when the lender will check back with you.
“I’m getting a lot of 3.6 requests right now and I’m quoting high fees and 2-3 week turnaround times.”
In the original Reddit post, u/RoddoDoddo said only one client had taken that offer. The limited workload was deliberate. They wanted time to learn the new report. A lender can send several requests like that in a day without getting your buyer any closer to a scheduled inspection.
If the appraiser hands it back, ask for a call that day
In a discussion about trying different software packages, Reddit user u/Glostaman wrote,
“I got halfway through a 3.6 and gave up after trying Aivre and a couple of others.”
The comment describes abandoning an attempt. It leaves open whether this was a live client assignment. In a separate post about an actual order for a rural manufactured home, u/vanilla_yogurtx said the client switched the format to 3.6, then canceled after receiving the new fee.
Give the lender a standing request. If the appraiser withdraws, the order is canceled, or the management company starts shopping it around again, let you know that day. Ask whether a replacement has actually accepted, whether the inspection must be rescheduled, and whether the original fee and delivery date still hold. Until someone reconfirms Friday, take it off the buyer’s calendar as a promised date.
What happens when a rural market loses even one appraiser?
On July 20, an AppraisersForum contributor posting as anney wrote,
“I have notified clients I am retiring 12/31/2026.”
The appraiser said they would accept only non-3.6 assignments through year-end and cited the economics of keeping the business open. A second contributor, nicholz12, replied that they also planned to retire that year. Both described career decisions years in the making, with the new format weighing on the decision.
A community can lose access to an appraiser for mortgage work even if that person keeps a license. Appraisal Buzz reported that, among 233 respondents to a Facebook poll, 4.7% were considering reducing their volume and 2.6% planned to take private work only. In a separate Reddit post, an appraiser who described being the youngest in their area saw an opening to serve lenders whose regular appraisers were retiring or declining the new orders.
For a buyer in a rural North Carolina county, the Mississippi example raises a practical question before the offer is written. When did this lender last place a 3.6 order near this address, and how long did it take someone to accept? A statewide average won’t tell you whether the appraiser who usually covers that county is taking new work this week.
Can buyers still budget $500 to $750 for an appraisal?
If $500 to $750 has been your usual ballpark, give the buyer a current, property-specific estimate from the lender before they build it into their budget. In McNeese’s rural example, $750 would have left the buyer budgeting $550 below the reported fee if the full amount were passed along.
Other orders show how uneven pricing can be. Reddit user u/Antique_Order3397 said a type of assignment they previously accepted for $600 was being offered at $450 under 3.6. Their experience bidding higher?
“All my bids of $800 are being rejected.”
An appraiser’s bid, an accepted assignment fee, and the amount a lender expects the borrower to pay can be three different numbers. Ask for the last one.
Corporate Settlement Solutions surveyed its appraiser network. Of the 831 who answered the fee question, 66.7% expected to charge more under 3.6. Among the 214 who had already completed a 3.6 report, 82.2% expected an increase. Those are pricing intentions, not a North Carolina fee schedule. If the lender is still gathering quotes, tell the buyer the number is preliminary.
Why even a familiar property can take longer to write up
On October 21, Reddit user u/Runningwithatorch described a refinance on a house they had appraised just months earlier. They had the prior report. This was their first UAD 3.6 write-up.
“What normally would have taken me about 30 minutes of report work took almost three and a half hours.”
That was time at the desk, after the inspection. The appraiser blamed the format and the volume of manual entry their software required. Their verdict was blunt.
“The whole thing should be scrapped!”
Appraisers disagree about what the new report does well
Consider an older home on a commercial corner, with a lot split and an encroachment issue. After completing a fourth 3.6 report, u/ScooterBrajj described what they missed about the old format.
“With 2.6, I felt like I could actually tell the story of the property.”
A commenter whose firm handles complex assignments reported nearly the opposite experience after the lead appraiser’s second report.
“Now documenting complexities is orderly and makes sense.”
The inspection can be over while the lender still has work to do
On LinkedIn, appraiser Joseph Mier, RAA, pointed out that even a trained appraiser can finish a report and run into a lender that cannot accept it. As he put it,
“A technology failure should not be labeled an appraiser delay.”
If a closing date is in doubt, ask where the report is. Is the appraiser still writing it? Has the lender received it? Has underwriting reviewed it or asked for a revision? Each answer points to a different next call.
Experience varied even in the final days before the deadline. Of 99 people who answered an Appraisal Institute LinkedIn poll, 42% said they had completed zero UAD 3.6 reports and another 38% had completed one to five. The poll measured experience among volunteers. Neither it nor the public posts establishes how often a North Carolina closing will run late.
Can a lender still use UAD 2.6 after November 2?
Yes, on a covered loan if the institution selling the mortgage obtained a temporary exception from each applicable enterprise. A lender that sells through another investor must follow that investor’s requirements. The relevant date is when the report is first submitted to the Uniform Collateral Data Portal. An October inspection alone does not establish that the older format is acceptable. Skyline’s earlier coverage of the lender exception explains how that can affect two buyers working with different lenders.
Under the agencies’ transition timeline, May 19, 2027, is the last day for a new UAD 2.6 submission under the exception. Beginning March 1, lenders using 2.6 lose certain protections related to the appraised value, so some may switch sooner. Starting May 20, only previously submitted 2.6 reports may be resubmitted, through June 27. The older format retires June 28.
What should a North Carolina broker ask the buyer’s lender?
“For this loan, are you ordering UAD 2.6 or 3.6? If it’s 2.6, has the investor confirmed it can accept that format? Has an appraiser accepted the assignment? What will the buyer pay, when is the inspection, and when do you expect the report and underwriting review to be finished?”
“If the appraiser gives it back or the order goes back out for bids, please let me know that day. Once someone else accepts, please confirm the new fee and dates so I can update our buyer.”
Suppose the lender expects the report Thursday, your buyer’s due diligence period ends Friday, and underwriting expects to review it Monday. Even an on-time appraisal leaves the buyer facing Friday’s decision without the lender’s review. Walk through that gap with the buyer while there is still time to discuss options. If the buyer wants an extension, seek the seller’s written agreement before the deadline. The seller can decline.
On the listing side, Skyline’s guide to the redesigned appraisal report explains which property details to gather before the appraiser visits.
The next time a lender says, “The appraisal has been ordered,” you’ll know to ask, “Has an appraiser accepted it?” That’s the kind of practical takeaway we build into our North Carolina continuing education classes at Skyline School. Join us for your GENUP, BICUP, or next CE elective and bring what you learn to your very next transaction.
Sources
Official guidance and surveys
Firsthand posts and discussions
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