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Who this actually applies to

In the Denver metro, this usually means a conventional loan of up to $862,500 on a single-family home. That is the loan amount, not the purchase price. Cash and jumbo generally skip this mandate.

This is a loan-delivery rule, not a house-price rule. In the Denver metro (Denver, Arapahoe, Jefferson, Douglas, and the rest of that group), a conventional loan can run up to $862,500 on a single-family home in 2026.

• A buyer putting 20 percent down on a home around $1 million can still be in this system.
• A buyer putting 5 or 10 percent down crosses into jumbo sooner.
• A $1.7 million Columbine Valley purchase paid in cash, or financed as jumbo, usually will not use this new government-sponsored report.
• Wash Park, Greenwood Village, and Cherry Hills listings split the same way: financed at or under that loan cap, yes. Jumbo or cash, ask the lender.

FHA has started accepting the new format but has not made it mandatory. VA and USDA have not set a date. The Colorado contract appraisal contingency does not change.

What changes on the report

The appraiser still sets value the same way. The report is longer, living area is split into four numbers, and more interior photos are required. The deadline is the upload date, not the walkthrough.

The old one-size form is being replaced by a longer, more detailed report that shifts with the property. The appraiser’s job is the same: inspect, compare sales, give an opinion of value. The paperwork asks for more pieces.

The single “living area” number most people argue about is split into four: finished upstairs, finished downstairs, unfinished upstairs, unfinished downstairs. A finished basement in Columbine Valley or a garden level in Wash Park will not be mixed into the main floor. If MLS, the county, and the last appraisal never matched, that gap will be easier to see.

The appraiser will take more interior photos: kitchens, baths, living rooms, bedrooms, lower level, updates, and anything that looks worn or unfinished. Some assignments also need a sketch or floor plan.

The date that matters is when the lender submits the report, not the contract date and not the walkthrough. An inspection in late October that gets uploaded on November 3 has to be the new version. The old version cannot be converted. It is a new order.

Give late-October contracts a little more room in the appraisal window. Confirm the lender ordered the new format. Do not delay a listing for this.

What the seller and listing agent should have ready

You do not fill out the appraisal. Have the contract, permits, update dates, and square-footage source ready, and make every room visible.

You are not filling out the appraisal. You are making the appointment shorter and the revision list shorter.

Leave or email:

• The signed contract and any amendments
• Permits or certificates for additions and separate units
• A floor plan or builder plans, if you have them
• A dated list of updates: roof, heat and air, kitchen, baths, windows (year and what was done)
• HOA or metro district statement
• How you got the square-footage number on the listing

Lights on. Rooms open. Attic and basement reachable. If they cannot see it, it will not be described as finished.

Do not hand a stack of the three highest sales and call them comps. Dates and permits help. Coaching value does not.

Tell the seller before the report arrives: the living-area total on the appraisal may not match the MLS sheet. That is the format, not a verdict that the house shrank.

This is operational work. We would rather line the folder up with you before the order than sort a revision request after. That is the long-relationship version of an appraisal.