Recent Executive Orders: Threat, Opportunity, or Both for Appraisers?

On March 13, 2026, President Trump signed two Executive Orders that together amount to a clear message for our profession: build more houses, make credit easier, and get the valuation piece done faster and cheaper. We think it’s critically important that our industry discuss the implications.

The two orders are:

• REMOVING REGULATORY BARRIERS TO AFFORDABLE HOME CONSTRUCTION
• PROMOTING ACCESS TO MORTGAGE CREDIT

While they are not “about” appraisers, the Executive Orders will absolutely reshape the environment in which we work.  Appraisers who treat these as background noise will find the ground shifting under their feet. Those who read them as a roadmap can pick their spots and come out stronger and, more importantly, help shape how they are put into practice.

 

REMOVING REGULATORY BARRIERS TO AFFORDABLE HOME CONSTRUCTION: Faster, Cheaper Construction – What That Really Means for Your Desk

The first order is aimed at removing friction from homebuilding. This includes loosening environmental and permitting requirements; dialing back certain energy and water standards; and nudging states and localities to relax growth controls and accept more manufactured and modular housing.

Translated into appraisal reality, that likely means:

• More volume in “fringe” and underbuilt areas
  Projects that never penciled out—or were tied up in red tape—will start to move.  We will likely see new construction and subdivision work in exurban markets (exurban markets are low-density residential communities located beyond the suburbs that maintain economic and social ties to a major metropolitan center); infill and adaptive-reuse assignments in places that hadn’t seen much capital; and much faster pace of change in micro-markets you thought you “knew.”
• More manufactured and modular product to value
  The order is explicitly trying to normalize factory-built housing which might result in more manufactured and modular units in traditionally site-built neighborhoods; land-lease vs. fee-simple structures to untangle; and mixed streets where construction type, quality, and appeal vary sharply.  Competency with such things as factory-built housing, titling, foundation requirements, and land tenure will become a differentiator, not a niche.
• More demanding market analysis
  When supply ramps up quickly, markets don’t move in smooth lines.  Some submarkets may boom while nearby areas soften and price trends may diverge within the same city or school district.  Your “market conditions” section will have to move beyond generic trend language. The ability to explain why you chose certain comps—across wider geography and more heterogeneous stock—will matter more.
• Greater exposure to environmental and hazard risk issues
  Looser environmental and growth constraints don’t make risk go away.  You may need deeper due diligence on flood, wildfire, drainage, and insurability—and clearer commentary when those factors are even arguably material to value or marketability.

This order, by itself, doesn’t sideline appraisers. It likely increases the need for careful, competent analysis right where markets are changing the fastest.

PROMOTING ACCESS TO MORTGAGE CREDIT: Faster, Cheaper Valuations – Where the Squeeze Shows Up

The second order takes direct aim at how loans—and valuations—get done. The theme is unmistakable: streamline, digitize, and de-emphasize technical compliance.

For appraisers, here are the potential realities:

• More alternative valuation products: Regulators are being encouraged to expand the use of AVMs, desktop, and hybrid appraisals and reduce full appraisal requirements on low-risk and small-balance loans.  You should expect more hybrid and desktop requests and data-only products as well as a clearer dividing line between high-volume, low-margin work and complex, higher-risk assignments.
• Pressure on fees and turn times: Agencies are being asked to set “clear appraisal timelines” and cut costs and therefore lenders will likely lean harder on speed and price whenever a waiver, AVM, or hybrid is allowed, and traditional assignment ordering will have to justify itself on risk grounds.
• Changes in who can appraise and how: The order invites simplification of appraiser qualification requirements.  Easier entry could mean more competitors and lenders may fill low-fee niches with less-experienced personnel or non-traditional vendors.  If your business is built primarily on simple, low-risk assignments, this is a direct competitive challenge.
• Alignment of FHA and VA rules: HUD and VA are asked to align standards where risk is comparable, clarify what truly requires pre-closing repairs vs. what’s cosmetic, and expand post-closing repair flexibility.  That could change the frequency and scope of “subject to” conditions, reduce some friction and disputes around FHA/VA appraisals, and make your judgment about safety vs. cosmetic issues more visible and important.

In summation, this order calls for more technology and alternatives, more pressure on traditional appraisals, and more segmentation of valuation products by risk level.

 

A Clear Fork in the Road for Appraisers

Taken together, these two Executive Orders point in one direction: more volume, more complexity at the edges of the market, and more pressure to commoditize anything that looks “low risk.” Together they create a fork in the road for real estate appraisers:

• If you stay in the lane of interchangeable, low-complexity assignments, you will feel the squeeze—from technology, from relaxed standards, and from new entrants.
• If you lean into complexity—new construction, manufactured and modular, fringe markets, environmental and hazard issues, FHA/VA nuance—you become harder to replace, not easier.

This doesn’t mean abandoning efficiency or refusing alternative products. It means being fluent in hybrids and desktops so you can decide which work makes sense for you, positioning yourself as the expert when a lender can’t responsibly rely on an AVM or a waiver, and building documented expertise in the exact areas these orders will expand.

 

Don’t Let Policy Happen to You

As regulators and lenders figure out how to implement these directives, the details will get written in conference rooms and comment letters. That is where the future of appraisal requirements will quietly be decided.

Organizations like the Collateral Risk Network (CRN) are already at those tables—engaging with agencies, GSEs, and policymakers to shape how “modernization” plays out in practice.

This is not the moment for appraisers to sit back and hope for the best. It is the moment to:

• Show up in the forums where valuation policy is being discussed.
• Explain, with data and real-world examples, where appraisal adds irreplaceable value—and where shortcuts create unacceptable risk.
• Help define what “modernization” should look like, instead of discovering it after the fact in new lender overlays and revised forms.

If we don’t participate, we will be told what our role is. If we do, we have a real chance to steer the conversation toward quality, independence, and appropriate use of technology.

 

To get involved and stay informed, learn more at collateralrisk.org.