You have heard a new appraisal report is coming and filed it under things the lender worries about. A Freddie Mac director lays out the one date that decides it, and the difference is not old file versus new file — it is whether that report has ever been submitted, because a report already in the system can go back in for months afterward.
The interview is about the move to the new uniform appraisal dataset, which replaces the separate forms with one report — "that report covers all property types", including co-ops, manufactured homes and two-to-four units that the previous version left out.
Then the deadline, and his own framing of it: "that deadline is really nuanced." It is November 2. On that date, any new appraisal report going into the portal has to be in the new format.
The exception is narrower than people assume, and it only helps files that already moved. If a report was submitted under the legacy format before the date, "you can resubmit that after November 2nd, no problem. You can submit that through through May of next year." But a report that has never been submitted has to be the new one, no matter when it was ordered.
Which is why his practical advice is about ordering, not filing: "It's really, really important that they understand and they begin ordering early." "you don't want to place a report with the appraiser a week or two prior to that November 2nd date." The appraiser takes a vacation, the borrower is away, and the report never gets submitted in time. The goal is that "you want to make sure that you have a clean pipeline of those 2.6 appraisals" cleared before the cutoff.
“you can resubmit that after November 2nd, no problem. You can submit that through through May of next year.”
The reason this lands on your desk and not only the lender's is the calendar. Anything you put under contract in October with an appraisal ordered late is sitting in the gap: legacy report ordered, never submitted, and now it cannot be. The fix costs nothing and happens at contract, not at appraisal — ask when it is being ordered.
The other half is expectation setting. Around the changeover there will be appraisers and management companies working in a report format they have used a handful of times, and some files will take longer than they used to. Build that into the closing date you write in October rather than explaining it to your client in November.