On February 7, 2022, NAR sent a letter to Fannie Mae and the Federal Housing Finance Agency regarding Fannie Mae’s recent announcement that appraisers will be required to use ANSI® Z765-2021 (American National Standards Institute®) for measuring, calculating, and reporting above-grade and below-grade square footage for appraisals requiring interior and exterior inspections with an effective date of April 1, 2022. NAR requests that Fannie Mae delay implementation of this new requirement until Freddie Mac, FHA, VA and USDA adopt the same requirement to reduce confusion. Real Estate professionals and appraisers also need more time to become familiar with how the standard is applied.
Given this is such a significant change, the implementation date should be pushed back for the myriad professionals engaged in real estate transactions to learn and adjust to the measurement standard. Once implemented, there should also be a grace period during which real estate agents and appraisers provide feedback to the GSEs to work through any issues that could arise from the new measurement requirement.