Your Appraisal Came In Low? You Get One Appeal. Bring Five Home Sales, Not a Complaint.

If you’re buying a house and the appraisal comes in under your price, you have exactly one shot at changing it.

Don’t spend it on an angry email. Spend it on five home sales.

What a low number costs you

Your lender doesn’t lend against the price you agreed to. Fannie Mae’s rule for a purchase is blunt: the value used for your loan-to-value ratio “is the lower of the sales price or the current appraised value.”

Run it. You agree to pay $400,000 and plan to put 20% down: $80,000 cash, a $320,000 loan. The appraisal says $380,000.

• Keep 20% down: the biggest loan you get at 80% of $380,000 is $304,000. You now need $96,000 at closing. That’s $16,000 more.
• Keep the $320,000 loan: your loan-to-value jumps to 84.2%. Past 80% on a conventional loan, you’re paying for mortgage insurance.

Real money either way. And the appraiser’s number may be wrong.

The appeal they have to offer

Fannie Mae requires lenders to run a process called a reconsideration of value, or ROV, for borrowers who believe an appraisal is unsupported, sloppy, or discriminatory. The lender must explain the process to you when it hands over the report.

Here’s the catch, written right into the rule: “only one borrower-initiated ROV is permitted per appraisal.”

One. So what goes in it matters. Fannie’s list:

• your name, the address, the appraisal’s effective date, the appraiser’s name and the date of your request
• a description of what’s unsupported, inaccurate or deficient
• up to five comparable properties, with sources like the MLS listing number
• an explanation of why the new data supports a different value

Notice what’s not on the list: how much you love the house, or what the seller says it’s worth. The appraiser answers in a revised report with commentary, whatever the outcome.

Do this

Get the report early. Federal Regulation B says your lender must give you a copy promptly when it’s done, or three business days before closing, whichever comes first, and can’t charge you for the copy. Don’t sign the waiver that pushes it to the closing table.

Read it for facts first. Wrong square footage, a missed bathroom, the wrong lot. Those are the easiest fixes.

Then pull your five. Ask your agent for recent closed sales that look like your house and weren’t in the report. Closed sales, not listings.

File it in writing through the lender. Not to the appraiser. The lender sends it on.

If the value doesn’t move, price the gap with our mortgage calculator, read up on what mortgage insurance costs, and compare lenders on our best mortgages page. If your contract has an appraisal contingency, the low number is also something to take back to the seller.

One more thing changes November 2

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s new appraisal standard, called UAD 3.6, is mandatory for reports first submitted to their portal on or after November 2, 2026. Freddie says it swaps the old forms for one reporting structure covering every property and inspection type. If you close this winter, your report may look nothing like the sample your agent showed you. The appeal rules don’t change.

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