UAD update: First look at new View & Condition fields
Phil Perkins, Executive Vice President, Products
labs@alamode.com
In our last labs newsletter we covered some of the basic changes the GSEs' UMDP program would bring to your report writing. If you missed that article, you can read it here. Our UAD-compliant updates for TOTAL 2011 and WinTOTAL Aurora are only a month away, so I want to continue our UAD series by covering the three fields that will receive the most change: View, Condition, and Quality.
The UAD brings a fundamental change to the View field from a single line free-form text field to a new set of picklist fields. You'll simply choose how the view affects the value of the property and pick one or two descriptions of what types of view affect the property. Let's take an example of a property on a golf course overlooking mountains. First, you'll select if the view is adverse, neutral or beneficial. Then, from the list, you'll pick the first view factor that applies to the property. In this case golf course comes before mountain so you would select it first and then select mountain. In situations with three or more views, you pick the two most applicable. Simple enough, right?
One other change you'll want to know about is how your View selections will actually look on your form. Obviously, all those words aren't going to fit cleanly into the field. So the GSEs have come up with several abbreviations that WinTOTAL and TOTAL 2011 will automatically pop into your forms. The UAD-compliant field for our example would be presented as: B;Glfvw;Mtn.
If you're wondering how Fannie and Freddie managed to squeeze every possible view into one picklist, the short answer is, they haven't. In cases where the property view doesn't fit into any of the available options, you can choose "Other" and use your own abbreviations in the field. But keep in mind, the GSEs will want clear and descriptive abbreviations, and they've told us they don't want descriptions like "average", "none", or "typical".
The UAD also brings change to the Condition field. Where you're now accustomed to a multiline text field that allows you to type in your own description, the UAD requires more structure. In WinTOTAL Aurora and TOTAL 2011 we've added a slick and simple "Wizard-like" pop up where you'll answer a few questions. Specifically, you'll enter things like bathroom or kitchen remodels and time since the last update. In addition to the picklist questions, there's also a freeform text field where you can describe the condition of the improvements to the property which will overflow to the addenda if needed.
As you can tell from the report sample below, a numeric value is being inserted into the appraisal, but there's no definition of what C3 should mean to your client. To address those readability issues, we've created an addendum that you can insert into any UAD report that will help the reader understand all the arbitrary values and abbreviations. To see a full list of definitions and ratings, click here and go to Exhibit 1 on page 33 of Fannie's documentation.
I know we've probably piqued your interest at this point, so I'd like to provide you with more resources from the GSEs to help you with this process. For a full overview of UMDP and, more importantly, UAD, I recommend the UAD Tutorial found here. Another useful tool is their UAD Interactive Resource Manual (found here) which lets you look at the URAR section by section and see which fields are being standardized. Lastly, Appendix D is the main source for the field specifications. You can find that here.
In the next labs newsletter (April 1st), we'll go over how our UAD rules engine will help you deliver a UAD-compliant report the first time without all the back and forth between you and your client. And we'll also have a better idea of when in April to expect the UAD-compliant releases for WinTOTAL Aurora and TOTAL 2011.
