How to Complete a Desk Review Appraisal Form (Form 1033)

To complete Freddie Mac Form 1033, the One-Unit Residential Appraisal Desk Review Report, you fill in the identification header, answer the ten yes-or-no questions in Section I with a brief written summary for each, and complete Section II’s sales comparison grid only if you disagree with the original appraiser’s opinion of market value.1Freddie Mac. Freddie Mac Form 1033 – One-Unit Residential Appraisal Desk Review Report The current version is available from the Freddie Mac Guide’s forms page.2Freddie Mac. Forms and Documents – Freddie Mac Guide

What to Have in Front of You

A desk review is done entirely from paper and data. No site visit. Before you open the form, pull together everything the review depends on:

  • The original appraisal report. For a one-unit residential property that is typically Freddie Mac Form 70, the Uniform Residential Appraisal Report, which contains the subject description, comparable sales grid, adjustments, and value conclusion.3Freddie Mac. Freddie Mac Form 70 – Uniform Residential Appraisal Report
  • Subject property identification: physical address, legal description, assessor’s parcel number, census tract, and the property rights appraised (fee simple, leasehold, or other). These transfer straight into the Form 1033 header.1Freddie Mac. Freddie Mac Form 1033 – One-Unit Residential Appraisal Desk Review Report
  • Confirmation that the original appraiser is licensed or certified. The Appraisal Subcommittee’s National Registry lists appraisers authorized by a state to perform appraisals in federally related transactions.4ASC gov. National Registries
  • Independent market data: MLS records, public tax assessor databases, county recorder filings, and any automated valuation model output you plan to reference. These sources let you verify the comparable prices, days on market, and neighborhood trends the original appraiser used.

Filling In the Header

Before answering anything substantive, complete the identification block at the top of the form. It asks for the loan number, the effective date of the appraisal under review, the lender or client name and address, and whether the property is a manufactured home, condominium, PUD, or cooperative.1Freddie Mac. Freddie Mac Form 1033 – One-Unit Residential Appraisal Desk Review Report A missing entry here is the kind of administrative gap that stalls quality control processing, so finish the header cleanly before moving on.

Working Through Section I

Section I is required on every assignment. It walks you through the original appraisal one component at a time with ten yes-or-no questions. A “yes” means you agree the information is complete and accurate, and you add a brief summary supporting that conclusion. A “no” requires a written explanation of what is wrong.1Freddie Mac. Freddie Mac Form 1033 – One-Unit Residential Appraisal Desk Review Report

  • Question 1, Subject. Verify the address, owner of record, legal description, and basic identification data against public records.
  • Question 2, Contract. For a purchase, confirm the contract price, contract date, and any seller concessions. Mark “Not Applicable” for a refinance.
  • Question 3, Neighborhood. Test the original appraiser’s neighborhood description, including property value trends, supply and demand, and predominant land use, against independent data.
  • Question 4, Site. Confirm lot size, zoning classification, utilities, and any site conditions reported.
  • Question 5, Improvements. Check the reported gross living area, room count, condition, quality rating, age, and any physical deficiencies. Square footage and room count discrepancies surface most often here.
  • Question 6, Comparable sales selection. Decide whether the comparables chosen are the most similar to the subject in location, physical characteristics, and functional utility. If better comparables were available, explain why the omitted sales are superior.
  • Question 7, Sales comparison analysis and adjustments. Review each line-item adjustment for math errors and for support in the market data.
  • Question 8, Income and cost approaches. If the appraiser developed either approach, verify the data and analysis. Mark “Not developed” when they were not used.
  • Question 9, Sale or transfer history. Confirm the prior sale and transfer history for the subject and each comparable. If the original report is wrong, provide the correct history and identify your data source.
  • Question 10, Opinion of market value. This is the pivotal answer. If you agree the original value is accurate as of the effective date, mark “Yes” and Section I is complete. If you mark “No,” you move to Section II.

Questions 1 through 9 build the evidentiary foundation for Question 10. Consistent “yes” answers on the component questions lead logically to concurrence with the final value. Problems flagged earlier become the basis for disagreement at Question 10. A reviewer who marks “no” on Question 10 without documented problems in the earlier questions will struggle to defend the conclusion.

Completing Section II When You Disagree

Section II is required only when you answer “No” to Question 10. It demands substantially more work than Section I because you are building an alternative valuation.1Freddie Mac. Freddie Mac Form 1033 – One-Unit Residential Appraisal Desk Review Report Three components carry the weight:

  • Detailed reasoning for disagreement. Explain specifically why the original opinion is not accurate. General statements such as “the comparables don’t support the value” are not enough. Identify which data points are wrong, which adjustments are unsupported, or which comparable sales should have been used instead.
  • Extraordinary assumptions. List any assumptions you relied on that the original appraiser did not, such as a different gross living area, room count, or condition rating you could not physically confirm from a desk review.
  • A full sales comparison grid with up to three comparables. The grid mirrors Form 70’s structure, with line-item adjustments for location, site, view, design, quality of construction, age, condition, gross living area, basement, functional utility, heating and cooling, garage, and other features. You may reuse comparables from the original appraisal or select entirely different ones.

Below the grid, report whether you researched the prior sale or transfer history of your selected comparables and document any prior sales within one year of each comparable’s sale date. The section closes with a summary explaining why your comparables and analysis produce a more reliable result. Your final opinion of market value goes at the bottom, tied to the effective date of the original appraisal, not the date you performed the review.

Verifying the Comparable Sales

The comparable analysis is where most desk reviews succeed or fail. Verify the sale prices in the original report against public records or MLS data. Confirm that reported sale dates, gross living areas, and property features match what independent sources show.

Give the adjustment grid close attention. Each line-item adjustment should reflect actual market behavior, not arbitrary rounding. If the appraiser adjusted $10,000 for a bathroom difference, look at paired sales in the area to see whether that figure holds up. Net and gross adjustment percentages tell you a lot about comparability: a comparable requiring very large adjustments relative to its sale price was probably not the best available choice.

Independently verify market trends as well. Check average days on market, median sale prices, and price-per-square-foot trends for the subject’s neighborhood against the original report. A desk review that echoes the original data without independent confirmation adds little to quality control.

USPAP Certification

A desk review is itself an appraisal review assignment under the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice. The reviewer must develop a scope of work appropriate to the assignment, apply the USPAP standards for review assignments, and sign the pre-printed certification block at the end of the form.5Appraisal Subcommittee. USPAP Compliance and Appraisal Independence

A practical point that trips reviewers up: USPAP does not require verification of comparable sales data through two separate sources. The standard calls for collecting, verifying, and analyzing all information necessary for credible results, and leaves the method and depth of verification to professional judgment. When an engagement letter or lender overlay imposes stricter verification requirements, those become binding, and failing to follow them can be treated as a USPAP violation through misleading omission.

What the Completed Form Produces

A finished Form 1033 has one of two outcomes. If you concur with the original value at Question 10, the loan proceeds using that valuation and the review becomes part of the permanent loan file. If you disagree, the Section II opinion introduces a second valuation, which the lender will use to recalculate loan-to-value ratios.1Freddie Mac. Freddie Mac Form 1033 – One-Unit Residential Appraisal Desk Review Report

Some problems cannot be resolved from paper alone: unclear property condition, possible unpermitted additions, or comparable sales that need physical inspection to evaluate. In those cases the lender may order a field review on Freddie Mac Form 1032, which sends an appraiser to the property and neighborhood in person for a more comprehensive evaluation.