FHA Appraisal Requirements: The Items That Stop an Oklahoma Sale

Why this is not an inspection

Sellers lump these together and they are not the same thing at all.

A home inspection is for the buyer's information. Whatever it finds is a negotiation: fix it, credit it, or decline and let the buyer decide.

An FHA appraisal is part of the lender's decision. Where it identifies work that has to be done, that is a condition of funding. Nobody is negotiating. The loan does not close until it is done, and in practice the party who wants to sell the house is usually the party who pays for it.

Which is why a seller who has already priced in an inspection credit can still be ambushed. The two lists overlap and are not the same list.

Safety, soundness and security

FHA appraisals assess whether the property meets HUD's minimum property requirements, which are commonly summarised as three standards: safety, soundness and security. Broadly, is the property safe to live in, is it structurally sound, and does it secure the loan.

Everything in this article follows Bankrate's summary of the FHA appraisal requirements, read on 7 October 2026. That is a secondary source describing HUD's standards rather than HUD's own handbook, and the handbook is the authority and it gets revised. So treat this as the list of things to look at and have the buyer's loan officer confirm what their specific loan actually requires.

The items that get called out

From that summary, the conditions assessed include:

• The foundation must be undamaged, properly graded, and have adequate drainage to prevent leaks. Grading and drainage matter as much as the foundation itself, which catches people out. Our page on foundation problems in Tulsa covers the local version of this
• The roof must be functional for at least another two years. Read that again, because it is a remaining life test rather than a leak test. A roof that does not leak today and is at the end of its service life can still fail it. Our article on how long a roof lasts in Oklahoma covers what that means here, where hail shortens everything
• Water, electrical, plumbing and HVAC must function properly
• Access by a safe road, public or private
• Utilities: gas, electricity, potable water and sewage must all be accessible

And the repairs most commonly required:

• Peeling paint scraped and repainted. The single most frequent one, and the cheapest to deal with before you list
• Broken windows and doors replaced before move in
• Drainage reconfigured to direct water away from the house
• Pest infestations treated
• Damaged major systems repaired before closing

Who pays, and when the work has to be done

The purchase agreement stipulates responsibility, and in practice, as the source puts it, often the seller is responsible. Repairs typically have to be complete before closing, though outdoor work may be delayed with funds held in escrow.

Two consequences worth planning for. First, the money comes out before you get paid, not out of the proceeds, which is a cash flow problem rather than a price problem. Second, the work has to be scheduled into a closing timetable that is already running, which is the expensive way to buy anything.

The source also notes an FHA appraisal can be good for as long as six months in stable markets, which matters if a deal collapses and a second FHA buyer appears, because the first appraisal may still be in play.

What to do before you list

1. Walk the outside with this list in your hand. Paint, handrails, broken glass, grading, downspouts. Most of it is a weekend and a few hundred dollars, and all of it is cheaper now than on a closing timetable
2. Be honest about the roof's age, read off the shingles rather than from memory. If it is near the end of its life, you are choosing between replacing it, pricing it, or selling to a buyer who does not need a lender
3. Check that every utility is on and working, including in a vacant house. An appraiser cannot verify a system that is switched off, and a vacant property with the gas disconnected creates a problem that looks like a defect
4. Get the drainage right. Gutters cleared, downspouts extended, the ground falling away from the walls. It is on the list twice, as foundation grading and as drainage
5. Ask the buyer's loan officer what the loan requires, early, in writing. Loan types differ and the only authoritative answer is from the lender funding it
6. Price the ones you will not fix and disclose them with a quote attached. Our page on the repair cost estimator gives you the scale and a contractor gives you the number

Where a cash sale changes it

Entirely, because there is no lender and therefore no appraisal condition. A cash buyer takes the roof, the paint, the grading and the systems as they are, and prices them.

That is not an argument for selling to us. It is the explanation for a pattern sellers find baffling: the house is "fine", two financed buyers have withdrawn, and lowering the price did not help. A property that cannot satisfy a lender's conditions does not have a price problem, it has a buyer pool problem, and discounting does not create a lender. Our page on a sale that fell through covers what to do with the report once you have one.

And the honest position: if the list is short and the house is otherwise sound, do the work and list it. A good agent will very likely net you more than we will.

The short version

FHA appraisal requirements test safety, soundness and security. The items that stop sales are peeling paint, broken glass, missing safety features, grading and drainage running the wrong way, utilities that do not work, and a roof without about two years of life left in it. They are conditions of funding rather than negotiations, the seller usually pays, and the work usually has to be done before closing.

Walk the outside with the list before you list the house. It is the cheapest hour in the whole transaction.