Appraisal Data Standards

This site was established to promote open data standards within the appraisal industry. It focuses on both data structure and data transport standards needed to position the industry for smooth adoption of new technologies.

AppraisalStandards.org is designed for appraisal stakeholders including lenders, appraisers, reviewers, AMCs, etc., who may not have a deeply technical background.

Technical readers, including software developers who support appraisal workflows, may also find this site useful and can go deeper in the individual standards sites. The goal of this site is to keep discussions in everyday language, while still covering the technical ideas that matter in practice.

AXIS (Appraisal Exchange and Interoperability Standard) and EPM (Embedded Payload Manifest) are discussed on this site. Both are built in the open as an open standard with open source technical artifacts, publicly documented, and open to contribution from anyone in the profession. A small governance group, including both technical and non-technical stakeholders, provides final approval to keep the standards coherent and focused as they evolve.

The best place to begin is Quick Start. It gives you a guided path to help understand the site.

The Glossary is a key reference and defines the terms used throughout the site. For best results, read the glossary first, then use the standards pages and FAQ for practical context. Links are provided throughout for key terms that are defined in the glossary. On a desktop system, hovering over the link provides the definition of that term.

Why This Matters Now

Long gone are the days when a typist prepared the report on a typewriter, edits were marked up, the report was re-typed, an office copy was typed, and then everything was rushed to the mail.

Today the pressure is different, but just as real: faster turn times, AVMs, and constant cost pressure in the loan process.

Technology helps, but technology is only as good as the data behind it. PDF-only workflows are useful for presentation, but they are limited for machine use and can be lossy for structured meaning. When meaning is lost, the results can include inaccurate field extraction, wrong comparisons, weaker model performance, and AI or LLM summaries that hallucinate details that were never actually present in the original data.

USPAP and other professional standards define how appraisal practice should be performed. Those frameworks can inform open-model training, but reliable BI and model outcomes still require data in a consistent, predictable format that software can use directly. PDF files alone do not provide that on their own.

Why AXIS and EPM Together

The AXIS data standard is the gateway to structured appraisal data. It gives the profession a practical structure for Appraisal Report (AR) and Appraisal Review (APR) data today, with room to expand across related appraisal-domain use cases. AXIS structured data can improve BI results, including AI and Generative AI results. That stronger data foundation can support many forms of BI, including AVMs, while improving data fidelity and downstream decision quality.

EPM is the transport and security envelope. One way it can be used is as an embedded file within a PDF document. It can also be used as a standalone security envelope transmitted outside a PDF. The AXIS implementation utilizes EPM with a PDF host document.

If you want the fuller rationale, read Why the PDF Is the Right Home for Structured Appraisal Data.

As an envelope, EPM packages a payload with processing metadata, including optional payload compression and encryption. EPM is payload agnostic, not appraisal-specific, and helps replace brittle sidecar file workflows with more predictable exchange behavior.

For security and transport details, see EPM Payload Encryption and Compression.

Seasoned appraisers may not always feel a need to contribute to technical standards work, but their field experience is exactly what helps guide AXIS in the right direction. Their grassroots experience in the field is invaluable to the future of the profession. Those contributions do not need to be technical. Practical workflow feedback, edge cases, and plain-language recommendations are all valuable inputs. One seemingly benign piece of feedback can have significant impact on the standards.

The changes are already happening. How we position ourselves now matters.

Coming soon: a recommendation form where suggestions can be submitted by email directly from this site.

Next Steps

Continue with one of the following, or proceed to Quick Start.

  • AXIS Overview for semantics, contracts, and interoperability direction.
  • EPM Overview for payload transport, packaging, and exchange behavior.
  • FAQ for plain-language questions and quick practical guidance.
  • Use Cases for applied examples.