# Desktop Appraisal

> Desktop Appraisal translates a unique property into a supportable opinion of value

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Stable ID | `node:kiduna:real-estate-mortgage:appraisal-valuation:desktop-appraisal` |
| Family | Appraisal & Valuation |
| Domain | Economics |
| Era | Institutional Age → Agentic Age |
| Kind | process |
| Archetype | The Translation |
| Claim layers | empirical, cultural_historical, synthesis, interpretive, symbolic_divinatory |

## What it is

Desktop Appraisal is a process in the Appraisal & Valuation family, defined here by the function it performs in the property system rather than by label alone.

## What it actually does

Desktop Appraisal translates a unique property into a supportable opinion of value.

## Why it exists

It exists because place is unique and immovable while law, capital, information, and human lives must still coordinate around it across time.

## System mechanics

- **Who uses it:** owner, occupant, buyer, seller, lender, investor, steward, regulator
- **Incentives:** certainty, speed, compliance, completion, error reduction
- **Inputs:** participants, documents, conditions, authority, time
- **Outputs:** decision, changed state, record, new obligations
- **Dependencies:** Land, Authority, Information, Capital, Time

## Archetypal reading

- **Essence:** Desktop Appraisal translates a unique property into a supportable opinion of value
- **Gift:** Clarity about desktop appraisal makes a hidden allocation of place, time, authority, value, or risk available for deliberate choice.
- **Wound / Shadow:** When desktop appraisal is treated as neutral or inevitable, its costs can be shifted to people who hold less information, authority, liquidity, or mobility.
- **Failure mode:** The failure mode appears when desktop appraisal is stale, opaque, mispriced, misrecorded, overextended, or applied outside the conditions that made it useful.

## Lenses

- **Personal:** Notice where desktop appraisal appears as a structure in your own commitments: what is held, promised, priced, protected, excluded, or deferred?
- **Business:** Desktop Appraisal reveals a handoff among information, authority, incentives, operating work, and capital. Make the owner of each handoff explicit.
- **Financial:** Desktop Appraisal changes the timing, priority, comparability, liquidity, or distribution of cash flow and risk.
- **Property:** Desktop Appraisal changes how a physical place can be used, valued, financed, transferred, occupied, maintained, or reclaimed.
- **Community:** Desktop Appraisal can create benefits inside one parcel while exporting costs or opportunity to neighbors, institutions, or future residents.

## Divination

The Translation enters the reading through Desktop Appraisal. The issue is not only what is visible; it is which map of ownership, time, risk, authority, or belonging currently governs the situation.

**Question:** What information or condition must Desktop Appraisal translate before the next commitment becomes safe?

**Guidance:** Make conditions, exceptions, handoffs, and completion criteria explicit.

## Game function

Creates a gated action requiring inputs, a decision, and a resulting Record. Initiative 1.

## Relationships

- **Flood Determination conflicts with Desktop Appraisal.** Flood Determination conflicts with Desktop Appraisal through a change in rights, information, cash flow, priority, timing, or physical use.
- **Broker Price Opinion conflicts with Desktop Appraisal.** Broker Price Opinion conflicts with Desktop Appraisal through a change in rights, information, cash flow, priority, timing, or physical use.
- **Desktop Appraisal is evidenced by Home Equity Line of Credit.** Desktop Appraisal is evidenced by Home Equity Line of Credit through a change in rights, information, cash flow, priority, timing, or physical use.

## Oppositions

- Market Value versus Meaning
- Standardization versus Uniqueness

## Historical lineage and regulatory context

Read Desktop Appraisal through the lineage of Appraisal & Valuation: earlier customary or local arrangements became recorded, standardized, financed, regulated, digitized, or contested over time.

Rules vary by jurisdiction and transaction. Use the cited primary sources as starting points and verify current local law, program guides, contracts, and professional standards before operational use.

## Visual direction

Text-free rounded-square enamel artifact for Desktop Appraisal: a sequence of thresholds connected by a single bright path, with conditions represented as gates; vitreous midnight enamel, blackened steel, warm brass, copper accents, mortgage-paper cream, deep green, slate, and sky blue.

## Engine output / Sentinel handoff

The generative interpretation above is preserved as Engine Output. Sentinel factors: jurisdiction-specific rules, factual uncertainty. These factors request contextual review; they do not delete or silently rewrite the candidate.

## Research / provenance

- [Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice](https://appraisalfoundation.org/pages/uspap) — The Appraisal Foundation; appraisal ethics, development, reporting, review.
- [Quality Control Standards for Automated Valuation Models](https://www.consumerfinance.gov/compliance/compliance-resources/mortgage-resources/quality-control-standards-for-automated-valuation-models/) — Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; AVM controls and valuation technology.
- [Fannie Mae Selling Guide](https://singlefamily.fanniemae.com/media/document/pdf/selling-guide-february-4-2026) — Fannie Mae; loan eligibility, underwriting, appraisal, delivery.
