First page of URAR/1004 issue
Communicating with clients is very important and one that the URAR/1004 falls short in doing. One of the biggest issues I located on the new 2005 Fannie Mae forms is the room layout under the improvements section. On the old 1993 version of the URAR/1004 more emphasis was given to this section and all of the rooms and bathrooms were shown in one place. The new 2005 version however only has one line with a small note that it is only referring to "Finished area above grade contains:". To the typical homeowner reviewing this form this line is very confusing and should be left out of the form in my opinion if it will not address all of the finished rooms. The majority of the calls I receive from homeowners regarding there appraisal report refers to this one line. They ask "Why does it say I only have 2 bathrooms when I have 3 bathrooms?". I then have to show them that the line only refers to above grade and that the basement layout is shown on the next page under finished basement.
Something to think about Fannie Mae when creating a new set of forms.