Appraiser Bias Education

[shrubberyvaluation]

National News

Black Family Lowballed Over $254,000 By Home Appraiser Reaches Settlement​

ByBIN
May 15, 2025

Mehdipour-Mossafer inspected the home and prepared an appraisal report that resulted in a valuation of $900,000, over $250,000 lower than their appraisal from earlier that year. The Curtises also found that the comparable homes used in the new appraisal report included ones with boarded-up windows, a caved-in garage, and bricks sitting on top of roof shingles to hold them in place

Black Family Lowballed Over $254,000 By Home Appraiser Reaches Settlement | BIN: Black Information Network

A California couple has been awarded $75,000 after an appraiser and lender undervalued their home due to apparent racial bias.

www.binnews.com

looks like the appraiser didn't verify the data....

Yea but I bet they got it turned in within 24 hours for $145 to Clear Capital. Mehdipour-Mossafer must be one of those white racist appraisers we always hear about.

 

[shrubberyvaluation]

National News

Black Family Lowballed Over $254,000 By Home Appraiser Reaches Settlement​

ByBIN
May 15, 2025

Mehdipour-Mossafer inspected the home and prepared an appraisal report that resulted in a valuation of $900,000, over $250,000 lower than their appraisal from earlier that year. The Curtises also found that the comparable homes used in the new appraisal report included ones with boarded-up windows, a caved-in garage, and bricks sitting on top of roof shingles to hold them in place

Black Family Lowballed Over $254,000 By Home Appraiser Reaches Settlement | BIN: Black Information Network

A California couple has been awarded $75,000 after an appraiser and lender undervalued their home due to apparent racial bias.

www.binnews.com

looks like the appraiser didn't verify the data....

big AMCs want PAREA so they can just burn through newbies willing to risk their license and lawsuits that will churn out reports in 24 hours for $150 or less.

 

[Sadie]

I spent a good chunk of my youth in a city that was so racist and biased, that it was one of the first in the nation where busing became mandatory. My first house in a "fringe area" (because it was affordable for a young single gal) had a race exclusion clause on the deed. 50 years later, my granddaughter exclaimed how 'open minded' the city has become by pointing out how her grade school touted their acceptance of non-white students. I'm sorry, but if you have to pat yourselves on the back for tolerating another race, you are absolutely clueless. It was depressing living there. When I visit there, the fact that neighborhoods can still be pointed to as Polish, Mexican, Puerto Rican, German, Jewish, Black etc indicates to me that people's biases are often generational and reinforced within families as well as on the job etc. No CE classes will likely fix that.

I think the classes are not to fix what you describe, its to keep it from creeping into your work. And to recognize bias in ways you had not thought about?

 

[Sandra Koutsopoulos]

That bias is so deeply ingrained in some places, I doubt the ppl even THINK they are biased. Therefore whether one reads bias into their situation where it doesn't actually exist, or are acting 'normally' with their nasty biases intact, the best we can hope for in a flawed world is to aspire to equality, fairness, compassion and tolerance.

 

[shrubberyvaluation]

That bias is so deeply ingrained in some places, I doubt the ppl even THINK they are biased. Therefore whether one reads bias into their situation where it doesn't actually exist, or are acting 'normally' with their nasty biases intact, the best we can hope for in a flawed world is to aspire to equality, fairness, compassion and tolerance.

Maybe it is, but also the value too low is instantly correct and due to racial bias is flawed. No more bad appraisers, they are all biased! All appraisers that do a good job when value too low are also biased! Maybe if the borrower is white...

 

[shrubberyvaluation]

That bias is so deeply ingrained in some places, I doubt the ppl even THINK they are biased. Therefore whether one reads bias into their situation where it doesn't actually exist, or are acting 'normally' with their nasty biases intact, the best we can hope for in a flawed world is to aspire to equality, fairness, compassion and tolerance.

Big AMCs using the fastest and cheapest can't ever be the problem...it has to be bias.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Polish, Mexican, Puerto Rican, German, Jewish, Black

Again... Races do not clash so much as cultures. In part of rural S. Texas, there are still German enclaves in places like New Ulm. They date from the 1830s. The fact they still take pride in their culture does not mean it isn't fully assimilated among their peers.

 

[Sandra Koutsopoulos]

Again... Races do not clash so much as cultures. In part of rural S. Texas, there are still German enclaves in places like New Ulm. They date from the 1830s. The fact they still take pride in their culture does not mean it isn't fully assimilated among their peers.
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In that city, for example, I had several rental properties with many good tenants, and some... not so much. So when I evicted a tenant who had come at me with an honest to goodness SPEAR (with a leopard grip), I was present during the move-out. Well, apples don't fall far from the tree as they say, and the tenant's mother came with a hammer trying to break my windshield. Vexed, I went to the police department a few blocks away and was told I was a white girl, and what was I doing in that neighborhood. They didn't lift a finger, nor even take a report. That speaks volumes. My feeling was that when anybody breaks the law, they should be held accountable, but in that city, criminal behavior in certain neighborhoods was expected and tolerated. What I've learned in life is that when you reward bad behavior, you get even more bad behavior. Needless to say, the neighborhood folks were regularly victimized by criminals, property values were-, are- low, city services are minimal, and many homes in that area show lack of maintenance. I just spied a potential rehab/flip a couple blocks away from that property-- it is over-priced at $20,000.

 

[Sadie]

That bias is so deeply ingrained in some places, I doubt the ppl even THINK they are biased. Therefore whether one reads bias into their situation where it doesn't actually exist, or are acting 'normally' with their nasty biases intact, the best we can hope for in a flawed world is to aspire to equality, fairness, compassion and tolerance.

That is the reason the education is needed. What we don't know can hurt us.

 

[Airstream]

Taking the USPAP class I quote: The FHAct can be violated through disparate treatment (treating individuals of one protected group differently from and less favorably than others not in that protected group) and disparate impact (employing neutral policies or practices that disproportionately harm members of a protected group, except when those policies or practices are justified and there are no less disproportionate policies or practices that could be used instead).

So if in our neutrality we are having a negative impact then we are having a disparate impact UNLESS when those policies or practices are justified? What the H does that mean? That is so nebulous it could be twisted in all kinds of ways. And talk about leaving us open to liability!!