source:
  type: guide
  id: fnma-sel-b3-1-01
  authority: Fannie Mae Selling Guide B3-1-01 — Comprehensive Risk Assessment
  description: Fannie Mae Selling Guide B3-1-01 — Comprehensive Risk Assessment.
  coverage_tier: operative
obligations:
- id: fnma-sel-b3-1-01-full
  canonical_id: fnma-sel-b3-1-01-full
  section: Fannie Mae Selling Guide B3-1-01 — Comprehensive Risk Assessment
  type: do
  tags:
  - regulator-direct
  - fnma
  - selling-guide
  - corpus-expansion
  - tier-operative
  primary_source:
    tier: 1
    authority: Fannie Mae Selling Guide B3-1-01 — Comprehensive Risk Assessment
    source_class: fnma-guide
    source_url: https://singlefamily.fanniemae.com/media/document/pdf/selling-guide
    snapshot_id: 5f7b8b79da595d76
    fetched_at: '2026-05-25T14:09:57Z'
    content_hash: sha256:98cf85a02861bbe84914a0e339b327c8fc131869a8a573882007bbeea60c5701
    paragraph_quote: 'B3-1-01, Comprehensive Risk Assessment (11/05/2025) Introduction
      This topic contains information on the comprehensive risk assessment approach
      to underwriting, including: Overview Comprehensive Risk Assessment Overview
      Fannie Mae’s underwriting policies include an evaluation of the borrower’s (or
      spouse’s to the extent required by applicable law) equity investment, credit
      history, liquid reserves, reliable and recurring income, and the cumulative
      eﬀect that these and other risk factors have on mortgage loan performance. Fannie
      Mae’s underwriting policies enable the lender to consider various scenarios
      in evaluating a borrower’s willingness and capacity to repay the mortgage loan.
      The lender must conﬁrm that information provided by the borrower during the
      loan application process is accurate and complete; include documentation in
      the loan ﬁle that supports the lender’s assessment of the borrower’s credit
      history, employment and income, assets, and other ﬁnancial information used
      for qualifying; conduct a comprehensive risk assessment of each mortgage loan
      application; and render a decision to either approve or decline the mortgage
      loan application. Fannie Mae oﬀers lenders two options for conducting a comprehensive
      risk assessment–automated underwriting through DU or manual underwriting. Both
      methods include an evaluation of the borrower’s equity investment, credit history,
      liquid reserves, reliable and recurring income, and the cumulative eﬀect that
      these and other risk factors have on mortgage loan performance. Lenders that
      choose to manually underwrite a mortgage application are expected to follow
      the comprehensive risk assessment approach. Under this approach, lenders evaluate
      certain key risk elements to assess the overall level of delinquency risk. Lenders
      are fully responsible for: evaluating the delinquency risk of each loan; reviewing
      the credit report, as well as all other credit information, to determine that
      the credit report meets Fannie Mae’s requirements, that the data evaluated was
      accurate, and that the borrower has the capacity to repay the mortgage loan;
      Published May 6, 2026 268 assessing the adequacy of the property as collateral
      for the mortgage requested; determining whether or not the loan meets Fannie
      Mae''s eligibility requirements as fully described in this Guide; determining
      whether or not it is appropriate to deliver the mortgage loan to Fannie Mae;
      and fully documenting the assessment and the documentation on which the assessment
      was based. Comprehensive Risk Assessment Lenders must evaluate the overall level
      of serious delinquency risk that is present in each mortgage application by
      taking into consideration any layering of risk factors, the signiﬁcance of risk
      factors, and the overall risks present in the mortgage application. The Eligibility
      Matrix provides a solid foundation for assessing the risk of a manually underwritten
      loan and identiﬁes the risk elements to evaluate for each transaction type.
      The lender''s determination of the mortgage delinquency risk, the assessment
      of the adequacy of the property as security for the mortgage, the determination
      of whether the mortgage satisﬁes Fannie Mae''s mortgage eligibility criteria,
      and the acceptability of the documentation in the mortgage ﬁle should all enter
      into the decision on whether to deliver the mortgage to Fannie Mae. The lender
      must fully document the results of its comprehensive risk assessment and ﬁnal
      underwriting decision and ensure that the information used to reach its comprehensive
      risk assessment is valid, accurate, and substantiated. For a more precise or
      deﬁnitive recommendation for determining whether to deliver a given mortgage
      to Fannie Mae, the lender should submit the mortgage application to DU. DU evaluates
      the probability of future serious delinquency and arrives at an underwriting
      recommendation by relying on a comprehensive examination of risk factors in
      a mortgage application. Furthermore, DU is the standard by which Fannie Mae
      assesses the delinquency risk on all mortgages sold to Fannie Mae. Recent Related
      Announcements The table below provides references to recently issued Announcements
      that are related to this topic. Announcement Issue Date Announcement SEL-2025-09
      November 05, 2025 Announcement-SEL-2020-07 December 16, 2020 Chapter B3-2, Desktop
      Underwriter (DU) Introduction Published May 6, 2026 269 This chapter describes
      DU considerations and requirements.'
  judgment: false
