Appraisers And Assessors Of Real Estate

Fannie Mae's Property Inspection Waiver (PIW) and Value Acceptance programs, and Freddie Mac's ACE (Automated Collateral Evaluation) and ACE+ PDR programs, have systematically expanded the transaction categories eligible for appraisal-free or desktop-appraisal mortgage origination. The 2022 FHFA guidance explicitly authorized desktop appraisals as a permanent option for conforming purchase transactions — not just refinances — and subsequent policy has expanded the eligible loan-to-value and loan amount thresholds. Fannie Mae reported that approximately 40–50% of eligible refinance transactions used some form of appraisal waiver at peak adoption, and purchase transaction waiver rates have been growing. The $400,000 conforming loan limit now captures the majority of US residential transactions by count, placing most of the residential appraisal market in the policy scope of waiver eligibility.

The flagship AVM products from Zillow (Zestimate), CoreLogic (Total Home Value), HouseCanary, and Black Knight (now part of ICE Mortgage Technology) have achieved median absolute percentage errors (MAPEs) of 2–4% for standard residential properties in data-rich markets — a performance benchmark that meets or approaches the inter-appraiser variance observed in studies of human appraisers working the same properties. HouseCanary reported a national MAPE under 2.5% in its 2023 accuracy disclosure. Critically, AVM accuracy has improved as a function of data volume and model architecture improvements, and the trajectory is toward further improvement rather than plateau, particularly as alternative data sources (permit records, utility data, interior condition photo analysis) are incorporated into next-generation models.