
Black Homeowners Face Discrimination in Appraisals - TuringNYC
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/realestate/blacks-minorities-appraisals-discrimination.html
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TuringNYC
This paragraph was a jaw dropper:

>>> She took all family photos off the mantle. Instead, she hung up a series
of oil paintings of Mr. Horton, who is white, and his grandparents that had
been in storage. Books by Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison were taken off
the shelves, and holiday photo cards sent by friends were edited so that only
those showing white families were left on display. On the day of the
appraisal, Ms. Horton took the couple’s 6-year-old son on a shopping trip to
Target, and left Mr. Horton alone at home to answer the door.

The new appraiser gave their home a value of $465,000 — a more than 40 percent
increase from the first appraisal.

~~~
fargle
I think that people completely misunderstand how appraisals work. If the
original appraisal came in 40% low, there was clearly something very wrong
with it.

But it's not just an appraisers opinion based on appearance or alleged racism.
It's a concrete written record that can be reviewed. So _what_ was the actual
mistake? \- did the appraiser pick bad comparables? \- do the math wrong??? \-
completely miss certain features of the property or sq. ft.?

Let's answer that before we just blindly assume it was caused by an -ism vs.
incompetence.

So every now an again an grouchy, incompetent, or crank appraiser will give a
terribly flawed appraisal. This does happen, and when it does you show why it
was flawed enough and get a new one done. Just like what happened. It's a big
problem, but if it is bad enough to get overturned, trust me it's a big
problem for that appraiser too, and it won't happen more than a couple times
before they're fired.

The second fallacy is that we assume the good appraiser was only good because
he checked all the family portraits and noticed they were white enough to pass
muster.

Maybe the bad appraiser just sucked and the good one just did his job
correctly? And neither even noticed the pictures on the wall?

But that news would be a nothing sandwich that wouldn't ignite a twitter-
storm...

