Appraiser Bias Education

[J Grant]

The fact is... many appraisers exhibit bias in the way they work. Do you use any rules of thumb? That's called heuristic bias. Do you look at the purchase contract before you develop your opinion of value? Might lead to confirmation bias? On and on.. there are a lot of forms of bias. The claim of systematic racism among appraisers doesn't seem to be well supported however, it's one of those things where just making the claim gives it credence.

The problem is the nature of MV itself, and the accusers could not get away from that - at one point offering a million-dollar $ reward to anyone who could come up with an alternative way to appraise properties .

The issue is tht the data shows homes are selling for lower prices in some areas, not that the properties are systemically "undervalued " . Values ride along on the price train, what buyers are paying. The same sales data will populate an AVM or other alternative valuation as populates an appraisal, so unless they want to skew value and not use the most similar and proximate sales when indicated, there is no expanding it. h

 

[George Hatch]

Where their lack of appraisal competency betrays them is in their musings that the fix is to add an income and cost approach. They apparently don't understand that the rental market and the land value market are also extremely sensitive to location.

subdivision lots in my local sell in excess of $900k. SFR lots elsewhere in the San Diego metro area sell as low as $200k. A cost approach isn't going to make those locations equal in value. Same with rents.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

it went way back to the Civil War.

For years people were fascinated by the history of the Civil War while thinking it was over, done, and gone away. Racism wasn't erased by the CW but it wasn't created by it either. And to erase that history is to not be confronted by its reality. And without confronting the reality of racism and slavery...well, was slavery racism? Or a separate issue? Then we need to explain the huge number of Slavs (where do you think the term Slave came from?) and even Brits and Irish captured and sold into slavery in the Middle East. The women became concubines to Ottoman Turkish sultans until they were redeemed if their husbands or family could afford the ransom and the cost to get them home. Men who were not ransomed faced castration which, BTW, did just include the testicles being removed, and as a result half of them died, the older they were the more likely they died. And then they were sold. And I am not talking about 2,000 years ago. I am talking about up into the 19th Century. We ended much of that trade on the shores of Tripoli. You can thank slave owning Thomas Jefferson for that. The Barbary pirates were capturing vessels and enslaving sailors and demanding ransom for them. Jefferson sent war ships and kicked their butt. Reconcile that with "reparations".

the same sales data will populate an AVM or other alternative valuation as populates an appraisal

but the algorithms were the product of old white men...so they must be racist machines too...never mind it was probably programmed by an H2-b from India..or maybe programmed even in India. And we all know that the caste system is still alive and well in India...those racist bas'tids

 

[ucbruin]

For years people were fascinated by the history of the Civil War while thinking it was over, done, and gone away. Racism wasn't erased by the CW but it wasn't created by it either. And to erase that history is to not be confronted by its reality. And without confronting the reality of racism and slavery...well, was slavery racism? Or a separate issue? Then we need to explain the huge number of Slavs (where do you think the term Slave came from?) and even Brits and Irish captured and sold into slavery in the Middle East. The women became concubines to Ottoman Turkish sultans until they were redeemed if their husbands or family could afford the ransom and the cost to get them home. Men who were not ransomed faced castration which, BTW, did just include the testicles being removed, and as a result half of them died, the older they were the more likely they died. And then they were sold. And I am not talking about 2,000 years ago. I am talking about up into the 19th Century. We ended much of that trade on the shores of Tripoli. You can thank slave owning Thomas Jefferson for that. The Barbary pirates were capturing vessels and enslaving sailors and demanding ransom for them. Jefferson sent war ships and kicked their butt. Reconcile that with "reparations".

but the algorithms were the product of old white men...so they must be racist machines too...never mind it was probably programmed by an H2-b from India..or maybe programmed even in India. And we all know that the caste system is still alive and well in India...those racist bas'tids

If you're trying to say that racism is inherent in some people....
You're probably right....
Do you think it was Adam, or Eve or both that had those genes....

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

If you're trying to say that racism is inherent in some people....
You're probably right....

Ken Hamblin (the Black Avenger) said it best. Races do not clash, cultures clash.

The North was very little less racist than the South in 1860. The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to slaves in the Rebel South, not the North and slavery was not banned in the north. If you owned slaves there, they were still slaves. Blacks faced racism in the north just as much as the south for many, many decades after the CW. Minds change slowly over the generations. And no one can name a day when their family suddenly embraced real equality in their minds.

Many Southerners who fought didn't own slaves and there were many areas of the South who did not support the Confederacy. Madison County, AR was called the "Mountain Unionists" and Jones County, Mississippi refused to pay Confederate taxes or allow recruitment of soldiers and flew the US flag over the county courthouse. Even so, they probably thought of blacks as inferior. That's racism even when you don't support slavery.

The culture of MS-13 is not welcome here and shouldn't be. But the mindset that let Confederate statutes to be vandalized, destroyed or forced to move is an insult to the reality of the history that brought us to this point in America.

 

[TooMuchCoffeeGirl]

Take a 5 hour class.

Not an option in PA. The requirements 7-hours the first cycle and 4 hours thereon until death.

Oops - was reading from phone and didn't realize I already replied to this. I might need to change my name to NotEnoughCoffeeGirl.

 

[TooMuchCoffeeGirl]

CE is the cost of doing business. Make it 50 hours and it will weed out the part timers.

Agree and agree and I'd be all for increasing the hours required for renewal. However, my complaint here is that our required 28 hours shouldn't force us to add DEI bull biscuits that don't leave room for actually honing our craft. Once again I'm Pollyanna at the party thinking we should all be excited to learn new things or refresh our memories on those aspects of appraisal that we might not use everyday but should still know.

 

[TC]

I agree, the new DEI classes and regs are crap. BUT, them's the rules.

 

[TooMuchCoffeeGirl]

Yes, but 16 hours are MANDATORY. The other 12 are electives. Not a big deal.

I stand corrected. 28 is required (in PA) of which 16 is mandatory. It might not be a big deal to many but it's a concern to me when USPAP and appraiser law carves off 9 hours of basically wash/rinse/repeat and that's now expanded to a DEI-crafted course. Am I alone in looking forward to opportunities to take career-enhancing CE?

 

[TooMuchCoffeeGirl]

"Is there any way appraisers voices can be heard on this?" This is not an issue with any merit or reality. Systemic Racism in appraising causing hundred of millions or billion in lost value for POC....just a joke, sad joke. Appraisers fully run over by the bus, they could not care what appraisers have to say on this or much of anything for that matter.

"Is there any way" is exactly the reason that I started this post. I'm the queen of lurking on this site, and kicking myself for ignoring all the exposure drafts that came out of the AF, because that would have been the time to sqawk. I did a little digging to see if AF would fall under Trump's "no DEI' EO and, if I'm interpreting things correctly, it doesn't. I'd try to get some advice/action but I live in Baltimore. Need I say more? If it was up to MD legislators, I'd be taking the remainder of my CE in new mandatory "Anti-Gang Bias."