As you may have heard, Fannie Mae is preparing to expand data collection requirements for Property Condition Assessments (PCA) and Seismic Risk Assessments (SRA) in support of climate analytics. The beta phase of this update will be complete in December, and Fannie Mae is expected to announce the new requirements and release the updated data standardization form at that time. Many Fannie Mae lenders may have questions regarding this anticipated change. While the update is not finalized, there is some information available that may provide some peace of mind.
Fannie Mae is considering the addition of 30+ data points to be collected with the PCA and three with the SRA to capture property characteristics related primarily to climate resilience—that is, characteristics that impact how the building is expected to perform during a flood, fire, wind, or seismic event. These data points include items like cladding type, roof geometry, drainage, sprinkler systems, foundation type, etc. Many of these are part of building systems and components that we already assess during PCAs or SRAs, but some are not.
There will be an "unknown" response option for data points that cannot be captured during the assessment; however, every effort should be made to provide all requested data. Excessive "unknown" responses may not be accepted. Furthermore, the data collected must reflect the "as-is" condition of the building at the time of assessment.
At this point, Fannie Mae's resilience requirement is a data collection effort only. The data will be collected on a form that will be entered into Fannie Mae's data digitizer and not necessarily included in the PCA/SRA report.
This development is the latest in a growing trend towards data collection that began with the implementation of the Data Standardization Forms in 2020. The recent changes in radon testing requirements added 40+ data points to the due diligence collection scope. Much like the stand-alone delivery of radon data collection, the anticipated resilience data collection will be delivered separately from the PCA and Seismic Data Standardization Forms but will provide another layer of property analytics to Fannie Mae's database.
While Fannie Mae's push for data may stem from an increased focus on property quality and property condition, it is indicative of a larger shift in the commercial real estate industry towards digital due diligence, as opposed to report-based due diligence. Delivery of due diligence data via dashboard or raw data file allows the user to quickly access, analyze, and apply property data for faster, better decision making. Property data can also be exported into other management systems for faster onboarding of properties and greater visibility of portfolio data.
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Drew H. McCreery
Drew H. McCreery serves as Managing Director, Multifamily and Technical Director of Agency Services at Partner Engineering and Science, Inc. Leveraging over 20 years of experience, Mr. McCreery is responsible for the overall quality and consistency of Property Condition and Environmental reports associated with the Agency Lenders including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.. He is a member of the American Institute of Architects and has a Bachelor of Architecture from California State Polytechnic University of Pomona. Drew frequently shares his deep knowledge of the policy, regulatory, and quality requirements as they pertain to the agency lending landscape through blogs, articles, and speaking engagements. He holds a BA in architecture from California State Polytechnic University of Pomona and pursued Architectural Studies at the National Technical University of Athens, Greece.
