14 ms·

Black couple ‘erases themselves’ from their home, its value goes up by $500k

100 points by enraged_camel 5y ago

klyrs 5y ago
Not an isolated incident, either https://abcnews.go.com/US/couple-faced-discrimination-home-appraisal-wifes-race/story?id=73203432 https://abcnews.go.com/US/couple-faced-discrimination-home-a...
- cpursley 5y ago
  News reports about Avena Horton conveniently neglect to mention that she works for an AVM (automated valuation modeling) company that sells products that replace human appraisers. > Abena Horton’s employer Black Knight Inc. Who is her employer? Black Knight, Inc., formerly known as Black Knight Financial Services, is an American corporation that provides integrated technology, services, data, and analytics to the mortgage and real estate industries. Black Knight is one of the leaders in AVMs (Automated Valuation Models), which uses algorithms, much like Zillow and others, to estimate a home’s value based on public record data https://appraisersblogs.com/why-is-only-one-side-of-the-racism-claim-appraisal-story-being-reported https://appraisersblogs.com/why-is-only-one-side-of-the-raci...
  - klyrs 5y ago
    Are you saying she had financial incentive to be discriminated against? Or do you think she might have been more savvy to notice that something was amiss about her appraisal, because she works in the industry; perhaps more persistent than most in chasing it down, because she's an attorney? Really not seeing what's convenient about getting a second appraisal after scrubbing one's identity from the house. Have you found any news articles about this incident promoting Black Knight as a superior alternative?
    - cpursley 5y ago
      I'm saying that AVM software companies have an incentive to make human appraisers look bad and pointing out that this lady happens to work for one. Does that not raise any flags?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
hammock 5y ago
Cynically, would having a black family show up to to meet the assessor next time they come by tend to reduce your tax assessment?
- okwubodu 5y ago
  TLDR: Probably not. > State by state, neighborhood by neighborhood, black families pay 13 percent more in property taxes each year than a white family would in the same situation, a massive new data analysis shows. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/02/black-property-tax/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/02/black-pro... https://web.archive.org/web/20211127203735/https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/02/black-property-tax/ https://web.archive.org/web/20211127203735/https://www.washi...
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    Wouldn't that be because they can only afford the rundown house in the bad neighborhood, but the city has not corrected the tax levy because people keep living there? Cities don't just levy higher taxes on minorities. It's more likely the city retained the levied amount and did not change it after the white people moved. Now because it's in a "bad" neighborhood, appraisal values fall, but the city government still believes it retains it's specific value.
    - seoaeu 5y ago
      > Cities don't just levy higher taxes on minorities. One would hope so. But your unsourced claim isn't especially compelling given that the post you are replying to directly provided evidence to the contrary.
      - willcipriano 5y ago
        Aren't the taxes in the vast majority of cities determined exclusively by Democrats? Edit: Looks like only a strong majority as opposed to the vast majority: https://ballotpedia.org/Party_affiliation_of_the_mayors_of_the_100_largest_cities https://ballotpedia.org/Party_affiliation_of_the_mayors_of_t...
MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
I worked in the mortgage industry for a while and appraisals are 100% made up metrics. We consistently utilized specific appraisers who would "always" make sure the purchased house came in at the maximum value of our loan amount (80% of the purchase price). The taxes said it wasn't even worth the amount these people bought it for. Half the time lenders and us would joke saying we could be an appraiser. It's so easy, just look at your database of "comparable" properties and just say "heres a ballpark figure." We're headed for another 2008 like a goddamn train with no brakes. Whatever the federal government did to curb that, they didn't police the mortgage industry enough. Appraisers, realtors, and lenders are all complicit with only the banks getting oversight. Lenders can go through banks, but they don't have to be immediately affiliated with them. So they can literally be ignoring rights "guaranteed" by the government since 2008. On top of this, they charge single digit percentage fees for the loans. It is such a giant joke that honestly the government shouldn't bail out at all. Owning a house should be a legitimate risk. Not this farcical system of laundering money.
- freedomben 5y ago
  I worked in real estate and left because the whole industry is built on adverse incentives, rent-seeking, and sticking as many hands in the homeowners equity cookie jar as possible. I found it grotesque.
  - jimmygrapes 5y ago
    It's also pretty exploitative in the way "becoming a realtor" is marketed to women in particular as a way to "make money fast"
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      The women realtors I know make lots of money at it.
      - lostcolony 5y ago
        Survivorship bias. Likely also non-representative sample, but that's, of course, debatable.
rak 5y ago
Unfortunately this is sadly common. If people are interested in the racist history of home ownership in America I highly recommend The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America It's bad, really bad. It essentially robbed Black Americans of significant generational wealth.
- beckman466 5y ago
  yes, i also liked the book The Color of Money by UCI law professor Mehrsa Baradaran. here's some of her research findings: "Today, Black families have a median net worth of $11,000 compared to a white family’s median of $141,900. Pew Research Center data reveals that white families have 13 times more wealth than Black families. The wealth gap exists at every income level, with a third of Black families having no assets at all. The perpetuation of poverty is stunning—75 percent of Black children who grow up in families in the bottom wealth category remain in that same category as adults. A 2013 study found that for white families, every additional dollar they earn in income leads to $5.19 in wealth. For Black families, each dollar creates only 69 cents in total wealth. This growing divide perpetuates injustices hard to capture in the latest news of riots and protests. The racial wealth gap is where past injustice breeds present suffering." our systems are still inherently racist and we are a long ways away from equity. source: https://prospect.org/civil-rights/no-justice-no-peace-fix-the-racial-wealth-gap/ https://prospect.org/civil-rights/no-justice-no-peace-fix-th...
  - Spooky23 5y ago
    Those are selected stats to make the point they want to make. Class is more important than race - nobody understands how rich rich people are. The median net worth for middle class Americans is ~$20k. To put it in perspective, I was consulting for a payroll system for a hospital where the salary of the CEO was about the same as the sum of about 2,000 employees. (Most specialist doctors are not employed by the hospital)
    - theklr 5y ago
      You know both can be true, and majority of the racial disparities are deeply tied with race in America.
a-dub 5y ago
didn't they get an appraisal at the higher figure before the low appraisal and the subsequent experiment? i don't doubt that this sort of behavior exists, but i also don't follow the argument behind this piece. maybe the middle appraiser was just bad at their job or pandemic effects were in play? if i'm reading this right, they didn't have to hide their identity for the first high appraisal, right?
- ajross 5y ago
  My assumption was that the previous appraisal was under a different owner (e.g. the Austins bought and flipped it), but the text of the article isn't clear. As for how to prove any one event is racially motivated: sure, it's basically impossible. Which is precisely why this kind of problem persists. Are lawsuits against million dollar home appraisers the best way to address the imbalance? Certainly not. But you go to war with the army you have, as it were.
  - a-dub 5y ago
    it says they bought the house in 2016 for 500k, put 400k into it, had it appraised at 1.5, then at 950 and then at 1.5 again (with the hidden identity).
  - LorenPechtel 5y ago
    It's going to keep happening because that's how real estate works. They always advise you to scrub your identity from the house--this applies no matter what your race.
- Izkata 5y ago
  Yep, there were three appraisals, all of which they owned the home for (it says further down they bought it in 2016 for way less than even the lowest appraisal). The first one was for about the same as the third, except they didn't hide themselves. The low appraisal appears to have been Jan 2021, and the first one early 2020. The drop coincides with everyone moving around during the pandemic. Whole story is bunk, and there's an ulterior motive smell in the writing: All instances of "black" are capitalized, all instances of "white" are lowercase. This isn't normal, but is a trend among political activists.
jamal-kumar 5y ago
The USA probably isn't alone in this regard, but it definitely doesn't sound like it's being the leader in advancing equality these days either. I wonder what this looks like in other countries.
vanusa 5y ago
https://archive.md/yrnCn https://archive.md/yrnCn
NoblePublius 5y ago
This is completely meaningless. Home appraisals are not objective measurements of the value of a home. They exist for the benefit of mortgage companies to ensure that the buyer has collateral to cover the difference between the sale price and the actual likely sale price of the home. Appraisals are are always made relative to a specific buyer’s offer and will never ever ever appraise at higher than what the specific buyer needs to get financing.
WalterBright 5y ago
I once had my house appraised far higher than I thought it was worth. I appealed it by saying I'd sell it to the appraiser for what I thought it was worth, and he could flip it for the appraisal value. Didn't take me up on it :-/
YeBanKo 5y ago
The important details if it was for refinance or to take out equity out of the house or a new purchase. Lenders aren’t incentivised to get high appraisal for refinance.
WalterBright 5y ago
Appraisals are mostly fairy dust and nonsense anyway. The only thing that matters is what someone else is actually willing to pay for it.
- ajross 5y ago
  Appraisals indeed represent a best guess for what "someone else" would pay for the home, which factor directly into financing decisions by banks. Saying it doesn't matter assumes everyone is buying (or refinancing, or renovating, etc...) a house with cash.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    I didn't say appraisals didn't matter. I said the appraised values are usually nonsense. For example, how a house is oriented wrt the sun is a big deal, but that never factors into an appraisal. Build quality, comps, etc., do not affect this. Around Seattle, susceptibility to water damage depends on a long list of things that never factor into an appraisal, either, but there's no way I'd buy a house that had a driveway that sloped towards the garage.
    - hammock 5y ago
      >I didn't say appraisals didn't matter. Not to nitpick, but you did imply that appraisals didn't matter when you dismissed appraisals and then said "the only thing that matters..." while naming something other than appraisals.
pxeger1 5y ago
Off-topic, but: > The couple, who is Black Anyone else find this grammar jarring? I think it's probably technically correct, because it's one couple, but "The couple, who are Black" would read much better. Or just reword it to avoid it.
- emsy 5y ago
  No, because the declination of “be” refers to couple, which is 3rd person singular. The sentence is correct.
  - hammock 5y ago
    There is no hard and fast rule. The phrase could just as soon read "the couple, that is..." or "the couple, who are..." both of which sound better to my ear personally than "the couple, who is." Also note it has been common and correct English for centuries to mix singular and plural in sentences like this: "Everybody takes off their hats."
    - gaws 5y ago
      > The phrase could just as soon read "the couple, that is..." or "the couple, who are..." both of which sound better to my ear personally than "the couple, who is." "The couple, who are" is incorrect. What "sounds" better is not always correct.
- atkailash 5y ago
  Both are correct but it’s also regional to an extent. Bands/music groups are a good example. US says “Ace of Base is coming to the States” Versus UK “Ace of Base are…”
  - cperciva 5y ago
    Not sure why this comment was dead but I vouched to resurrect it since atkailash has the right answer here. Whether a group (family, band, or entire corporation) is treated as singular or plural differs between US and UK English.
cletus 5y ago
This is what institutional racism looks like. It’s rarely as cut and dried as “I hate [race X]”. Many acts of racism aren’t thought of as racist by the perpetrators. Consider a traffic stop. Black drivers are pulled over disproportionately. We know this because the difference goes down at night when it’s harder to see. I bet the cops aren’t generally thinking “he’s black, let’s pull him over”. It’s one piece of information that feeds into preconceived notions. Likewise, if an officer is relaxed at a traffic stop things will likely go smoother but they may end up escalating the situation by expecting trouble. All of this is really what critical race theory is about. It’s not about making people feel bad for the Sims of their fathers. It’s about recognizing that the legacy of that still exists and that, as white people in particular, we continue to benefit.
- edmcnulty101 5y ago
  You don't see African and Latin American countries having the same immigration problems that European and North American countries have. Institutional racism at work. Everyone trying to immigrate to primarily white countries. Even immigrants are racist.
  - BossHogg 5y ago
    After those "primarily white countries" engaged in a massive amount of wealth extraction for centuries.
    - edmcnulty101 5y ago
      I mean developing technology so much faster than those other countries...it's inevitable they would have done that. Tragic but almost every single one of those other countries haven't advanced in a millenia, other than the technology the Europeans and North Americans provided them.
  - true_religion 5y ago
    To be fair, as a member of one of those "African and Latin American countries" that's doing well... our immigration laws are tougher than the United States, and it's fiendishly difficult for a foreign national to start a business. The US and to a lesser extent Europe are immigration destinations because they wanted to be that way.
gunapologist99 5y ago
Agenda in search of a headline. A single sensationalist anecdote makes it less likely that real, legitimate claims receive the attention they deserve, especially in a more progressive city like San Francisco.
latchkey 5y ago
Curiously, I looked up the appraiser... https://www.millerandperotti.com/StaffProfiles.aspx?ID=532094 https://www.millerandperotti.com/StaffProfiles.aspx?ID=53209... https://www.yelp.com/biz/miller-and-perotti-san-rafael https://www.yelp.com/biz/miller-and-perotti-san-rafael Her reviews on Yelp were already pretty bad (and now getting spammed because of this article). I'm curious why they picked her to begin with.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  For my financing activities (origination and refis), I didn’t get to pick my appraiser; the lender did. (I can’t imagine how an applicant choosing an appraiser could even work. I think you’d find a lot of cash payments being made on-site.)
  - latchkey 5y ago
    I'm curious who the lender is then. Go up the chain to find the real dirt.
    - jtchang 5y ago
      Lenders don't get to pick appraisers anymore. They submit into a system and the system spits out the next appraiser. This was done to prevent gaming the system that happened in 2008.
Kognito 5y ago
As a non-US based individual, I find it fascinating that the news outlets there go out of their way to capitalise all usages of “Black” where it refers to skin colour, and lowercase any mentions of “white” skin colour. For an outsider, the obsession with race as a primary identity is bizarre. I can’t help but wonder, if you focussed less on how to treat people differently to make up for the past and instead just removed skin colour from the equation, whether a lot of this divisiveness would disappear. Their first appraisal was fine, second one was low, third was fine. Normally, anyone would assume the second was simply a poor appraisal - yet they immediately made it a race issue and sought to generate the conditions to ‘prove’ it. All sounds a bit manufactured, to make a good story and to stir racial tensions.
- YeBanKo 5y ago
  The US media sees everything exclusive through racial lense. They really condition you to think about race all the time.
  - Jansen312 5y ago
    Mostly democrats leaning/control news outlet (even Fox seems very pro democrats these days compare to older days). If you exposed yourself to US media that are not democrats-controlled typically they are more neutral on racial stuff though probably more on conservative and other more controversial topics.
    - skinnymuch 5y ago
      > typically they are more neutral on racial stuff though probably more on conservative and other more controversial topics. What does the end of this mean? If you're talking about conservative sites and they are also not neutral on racial stuff when it comes to conservative topics then that's the same as mainstream media. I don't know of any hard left [bigger] news outlets. There are a number of conservative outlets. They are usually mirror images in terms of caring about race as mainstream media. Check CRT or Rittenhouse + Andrew Coffee coverage as quick recent examples. The primary difference will be the conservative outlets saying they don't care about race. The actual behavior does not show that though.
bagels 5y ago
Seems like bad science. Three samples? Taken many months apart?
- nathanaldensr 5y ago
  This isn't science. It's Science(TM)--in other words, propaganda masquerading as evidence.
greenyouse 5y ago
There are some fascinating practices which have all but ensured racial segregation in some major US cities. In Minneapolis there was some good reporting on how racial covenants split communities and our city's culture.[0] There was a link to racial covenants in the article that shows how prominent they still are even in more left leaning districts like the bay area.[1] I had no idea that this was a thing until a few months ago. It boggles the mind that there's no legislation for removing this nation wide. [0] https://www.tptoriginals.org/learn-about-minneapolis-history-of-racial-covenants-in-jim-crow-of-the-north-full-episode/ https://www.tptoriginals.org/learn-about-minneapolis-history... [1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Reversing-redlining-One-Silicon-Valley-town-s-16623463.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Reversing-redlin...
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
As a non US citizen we are more prone to judge people on their financial status, culture and religion. I find it odd how the black community, despite living in the US for 200 years and by every measure "American", can still be so marginalized.
- BossHogg 5y ago
  500 years not 200. And the reason is because those in the majority view it as benefiting them.
- true_religion 5y ago
  Well until the 1960s, the members of the black community couldn't even attend the same schools, use the same bathrooms, or vote in the same elections as members of the white community. Now although the laws have changed, people who were previosuly racist in the 1960s did not simply die out overnight. They had no real reason to abandon their views, so they simply maintained them and passed it down to their children. Unless they or their children actively uprooted their baises, you'll find there are still plenty of people who are biased today.
cpursley 5y ago
Here's the appraiser side of the story if you're interested in more than the drive by media narrative: https://appraisersblogs.com/why-is-only-one-side-of-the-racism-claim-appraisal-story-being-reported https://appraisersblogs.com/why-is-only-one-side-of-the-raci...
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  Different story.
  - cpursley 5y ago
    Yes, but same premise.
jtchang 5y ago
I'm dubious that the appraisal difference was due to racial issues. Yes it might be but there is already an insane amount of random variance even between appraisals done during the same time. These appraisals were done with significant time between. A few days could mean huge differences by itself due to way comps are pulled (something new could have closed within that timeframe).
- theklr 5y ago
  Sorry, historical evidence begs to differ. These laws have only been in place in many cases in America for less than a century known as redlining and unfortunately most places have not made the said adjustments needed to remove the systemic problems that it created.
  - dude187 5y ago
    > These laws have only been in place in many cases in America for less than a century Bloodletting has only been rejected as a viable treatment for most illnesses for less then a century. Lets not delude ourselves into thinking that it's not still commonplace...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

100 points by enraged_camel 5y ago

Not an isolated incident, either https://abcnews.go.com/US/couple-faced-discrimination-home-appraisal-wifes-race/story?id=73203432 https://abcnews.go.com/US/couple-faced-discrimination-home-a...

cpursley 5y ago
News reports about Avena Horton conveniently neglect to mention that she works for an AVM (automated valuation modeling) company that sells products that replace human appraisers. > Abena Horton’s employer Black Knight Inc. Who is her employer? Black Knight, Inc., formerly known as Black Knight Financial Services, is an American corporation that provides integrated technology, services, data, and analytics to the mortgage and real estate industries. Black Knight is one of the leaders in AVMs (Automated Valuation Models), which uses algorithms, much like Zillow and others, to estimate a home’s value based on public record data https://appraisersblogs.com/why-is-only-one-side-of-the-racism-claim-appraisal-story-being-reported https://appraisersblogs.com/why-is-only-one-side-of-the-raci...
- klyrs 5y ago
  Are you saying she had financial incentive to be discriminated against? Or do you think she might have been more savvy to notice that something was amiss about her appraisal, because she works in the industry; perhaps more persistent than most in chasing it down, because she's an attorney? Really not seeing what's convenient about getting a second appraisal after scrubbing one's identity from the house. Have you found any news articles about this incident promoting Black Knight as a superior alternative?
  - cpursley 5y ago
    I'm saying that AVM software companies have an incentive to make human appraisers look bad and pointing out that this lady happens to work for one. Does that not raise any flags?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

hammock 5y ago

Cynically, would having a black family show up to to meet the assessor next time they come by tend to reduce your tax assessment?

okwubodu 5y ago
TLDR: Probably not. > State by state, neighborhood by neighborhood, black families pay 13 percent more in property taxes each year than a white family would in the same situation, a massive new data analysis shows. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/02/black-property-tax/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/02/black-pro... https://web.archive.org/web/20211127203735/https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/02/black-property-tax/ https://web.archive.org/web/20211127203735/https://www.washi...
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  Wouldn't that be because they can only afford the rundown house in the bad neighborhood, but the city has not corrected the tax levy because people keep living there? Cities don't just levy higher taxes on minorities. It's more likely the city retained the levied amount and did not change it after the white people moved. Now because it's in a "bad" neighborhood, appraisal values fall, but the city government still believes it retains it's specific value.
  - seoaeu 5y ago
    > Cities don't just levy higher taxes on minorities. One would hope so. But your unsourced claim isn't especially compelling given that the post you are replying to directly provided evidence to the contrary.
    - willcipriano 5y ago
      Aren't the taxes in the vast majority of cities determined exclusively by Democrats? Edit: Looks like only a strong majority as opposed to the vast majority: https://ballotpedia.org/Party_affiliation_of_the_mayors_of_the_100_largest_cities https://ballotpedia.org/Party_affiliation_of_the_mayors_of_t...

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago

I worked in the mortgage industry for a while and appraisals are 100% made up metrics. We consistently utilized specific appraisers who would "always" make sure the purchased house came in at the maximum value of our loan amount (80% of the purchase price). The taxes said it wasn't even worth the amount these people bought it for. Half the time lenders and us would joke saying we could be an appraiser. It's so easy, just look at your database of "comparable" properties and just say "heres a ballpark figure." We're headed for another 2008 like a goddamn train with no brakes. Whatever the federal government did to curb that, they didn't police the mortgage industry enough. Appraisers, realtors, and lenders are all complicit with only the banks getting oversight. Lenders can go through banks, but they don't have to be immediately affiliated with them. So they can literally be ignoring rights "guaranteed" by the government since 2008. On top of this, they charge single digit percentage fees for the loans. It is such a giant joke that honestly the government shouldn't bail out at all. Owning a house should be a legitimate risk. Not this farcical system of laundering money.

freedomben 5y ago
I worked in real estate and left because the whole industry is built on adverse incentives, rent-seeking, and sticking as many hands in the homeowners equity cookie jar as possible. I found it grotesque.
- jimmygrapes 5y ago
  It's also pretty exploitative in the way "becoming a realtor" is marketed to women in particular as a way to "make money fast"
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    The women realtors I know make lots of money at it.
    - lostcolony 5y ago
      Survivorship bias. Likely also non-representative sample, but that's, of course, debatable.

rak 5y ago

Unfortunately this is sadly common. If people are interested in the racist history of home ownership in America I highly recommend The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America It's bad, really bad. It essentially robbed Black Americans of significant generational wealth.

beckman466 5y ago
yes, i also liked the book The Color of Money by UCI law professor Mehrsa Baradaran. here's some of her research findings: "Today, Black families have a median net worth of $11,000 compared to a white family’s median of $141,900. Pew Research Center data reveals that white families have 13 times more wealth than Black families. The wealth gap exists at every income level, with a third of Black families having no assets at all. The perpetuation of poverty is stunning—75 percent of Black children who grow up in families in the bottom wealth category remain in that same category as adults. A 2013 study found that for white families, every additional dollar they earn in income leads to $5.19 in wealth. For Black families, each dollar creates only 69 cents in total wealth. This growing divide perpetuates injustices hard to capture in the latest news of riots and protests. The racial wealth gap is where past injustice breeds present suffering." our systems are still inherently racist and we are a long ways away from equity. source: https://prospect.org/civil-rights/no-justice-no-peace-fix-the-racial-wealth-gap/ https://prospect.org/civil-rights/no-justice-no-peace-fix-th...
- Spooky23 5y ago
  Those are selected stats to make the point they want to make. Class is more important than race - nobody understands how rich rich people are. The median net worth for middle class Americans is ~$20k. To put it in perspective, I was consulting for a payroll system for a hospital where the salary of the CEO was about the same as the sum of about 2,000 employees. (Most specialist doctors are not employed by the hospital)
  - theklr 5y ago
    You know both can be true, and majority of the racial disparities are deeply tied with race in America.

a-dub 5y ago

didn't they get an appraisal at the higher figure before the low appraisal and the subsequent experiment? i don't doubt that this sort of behavior exists, but i also don't follow the argument behind this piece. maybe the middle appraiser was just bad at their job or pandemic effects were in play? if i'm reading this right, they didn't have to hide their identity for the first high appraisal, right?

ajross 5y ago
My assumption was that the previous appraisal was under a different owner (e.g. the Austins bought and flipped it), but the text of the article isn't clear. As for how to prove any one event is racially motivated: sure, it's basically impossible. Which is precisely why this kind of problem persists. Are lawsuits against million dollar home appraisers the best way to address the imbalance? Certainly not. But you go to war with the army you have, as it were.
- a-dub 5y ago
  it says they bought the house in 2016 for 500k, put 400k into it, had it appraised at 1.5, then at 950 and then at 1.5 again (with the hidden identity).
- LorenPechtel 5y ago
  It's going to keep happening because that's how real estate works. They always advise you to scrub your identity from the house--this applies no matter what your race.
Izkata 5y ago
Yep, there were three appraisals, all of which they owned the home for (it says further down they bought it in 2016 for way less than even the lowest appraisal). The first one was for about the same as the third, except they didn't hide themselves. The low appraisal appears to have been Jan 2021, and the first one early 2020. The drop coincides with everyone moving around during the pandemic. Whole story is bunk, and there's an ulterior motive smell in the writing: All instances of "black" are capitalized, all instances of "white" are lowercase. This isn't normal, but is a trend among political activists.

jamal-kumar 5y ago

The USA probably isn't alone in this regard, but it definitely doesn't sound like it's being the leader in advancing equality these days either. I wonder what this looks like in other countries.

vanusa 5y ago

https://archive.md/yrnCn https://archive.md/yrnCn

NoblePublius 5y ago

This is completely meaningless. Home appraisals are not objective measurements of the value of a home. They exist for the benefit of mortgage companies to ensure that the buyer has collateral to cover the difference between the sale price and the actual likely sale price of the home. Appraisals are are always made relative to a specific buyer’s offer and will never ever ever appraise at higher than what the specific buyer needs to get financing.

WalterBright 5y ago

I once had my house appraised far higher than I thought it was worth. I appealed it by saying I'd sell it to the appraiser for what I thought it was worth, and he could flip it for the appraisal value. Didn't take me up on it :-/

YeBanKo 5y ago

The important details if it was for refinance or to take out equity out of the house or a new purchase. Lenders aren’t incentivised to get high appraisal for refinance.

WalterBright 5y ago

Appraisals are mostly fairy dust and nonsense anyway. The only thing that matters is what someone else is actually willing to pay for it.

ajross 5y ago
Appraisals indeed represent a best guess for what "someone else" would pay for the home, which factor directly into financing decisions by banks. Saying it doesn't matter assumes everyone is buying (or refinancing, or renovating, etc...) a house with cash.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I didn't say appraisals didn't matter. I said the appraised values are usually nonsense. For example, how a house is oriented wrt the sun is a big deal, but that never factors into an appraisal. Build quality, comps, etc., do not affect this. Around Seattle, susceptibility to water damage depends on a long list of things that never factor into an appraisal, either, but there's no way I'd buy a house that had a driveway that sloped towards the garage.
  - hammock 5y ago
    >I didn't say appraisals didn't matter. Not to nitpick, but you did imply that appraisals didn't matter when you dismissed appraisals and then said "the only thing that matters..." while naming something other than appraisals.

pxeger1 5y ago

Off-topic, but: > The couple, who is Black Anyone else find this grammar jarring? I think it's probably technically correct, because it's one couple, but "The couple, who are Black" would read much better. Or just reword it to avoid it.

emsy 5y ago
No, because the declination of “be” refers to couple, which is 3rd person singular. The sentence is correct.
- hammock 5y ago
  There is no hard and fast rule. The phrase could just as soon read "the couple, that is..." or "the couple, who are..." both of which sound better to my ear personally than "the couple, who is." Also note it has been common and correct English for centuries to mix singular and plural in sentences like this: "Everybody takes off their hats."
  - gaws 5y ago
    > The phrase could just as soon read "the couple, that is..." or "the couple, who are..." both of which sound better to my ear personally than "the couple, who is." "The couple, who are" is incorrect. What "sounds" better is not always correct.
atkailash 5y ago
Both are correct but it’s also regional to an extent. Bands/music groups are a good example. US says “Ace of Base is coming to the States” Versus UK “Ace of Base are…”
- cperciva 5y ago
  Not sure why this comment was dead but I vouched to resurrect it since atkailash has the right answer here. Whether a group (family, band, or entire corporation) is treated as singular or plural differs between US and UK English.

cletus 5y ago

This is what institutional racism looks like. It’s rarely as cut and dried as “I hate [race X]”. Many acts of racism aren’t thought of as racist by the perpetrators. Consider a traffic stop. Black drivers are pulled over disproportionately. We know this because the difference goes down at night when it’s harder to see. I bet the cops aren’t generally thinking “he’s black, let’s pull him over”. It’s one piece of information that feeds into preconceived notions. Likewise, if an officer is relaxed at a traffic stop things will likely go smoother but they may end up escalating the situation by expecting trouble. All of this is really what critical race theory is about. It’s not about making people feel bad for the Sims of their fathers. It’s about recognizing that the legacy of that still exists and that, as white people in particular, we continue to benefit.

edmcnulty101 5y ago
You don't see African and Latin American countries having the same immigration problems that European and North American countries have. Institutional racism at work. Everyone trying to immigrate to primarily white countries. Even immigrants are racist.
- BossHogg 5y ago
  After those "primarily white countries" engaged in a massive amount of wealth extraction for centuries.
  - edmcnulty101 5y ago
    I mean developing technology so much faster than those other countries...it's inevitable they would have done that. Tragic but almost every single one of those other countries haven't advanced in a millenia, other than the technology the Europeans and North Americans provided them.
- true_religion 5y ago
  To be fair, as a member of one of those "African and Latin American countries" that's doing well... our immigration laws are tougher than the United States, and it's fiendishly difficult for a foreign national to start a business. The US and to a lesser extent Europe are immigration destinations because they wanted to be that way.

gunapologist99 5y ago

Agenda in search of a headline. A single sensationalist anecdote makes it less likely that real, legitimate claims receive the attention they deserve, especially in a more progressive city like San Francisco.

latchkey 5y ago

Curiously, I looked up the appraiser... https://www.millerandperotti.com/StaffProfiles.aspx?ID=532094 https://www.millerandperotti.com/StaffProfiles.aspx?ID=53209... https://www.yelp.com/biz/miller-and-perotti-san-rafael https://www.yelp.com/biz/miller-and-perotti-san-rafael Her reviews on Yelp were already pretty bad (and now getting spammed because of this article). I'm curious why they picked her to begin with.

sokoloff 5y ago
For my financing activities (origination and refis), I didn’t get to pick my appraiser; the lender did. (I can’t imagine how an applicant choosing an appraiser could even work. I think you’d find a lot of cash payments being made on-site.)
- latchkey 5y ago
  I'm curious who the lender is then. Go up the chain to find the real dirt.
  - jtchang 5y ago
    Lenders don't get to pick appraisers anymore. They submit into a system and the system spits out the next appraiser. This was done to prevent gaming the system that happened in 2008.

Kognito 5y ago

As a non-US based individual, I find it fascinating that the news outlets there go out of their way to capitalise all usages of “Black” where it refers to skin colour, and lowercase any mentions of “white” skin colour. For an outsider, the obsession with race as a primary identity is bizarre. I can’t help but wonder, if you focussed less on how to treat people differently to make up for the past and instead just removed skin colour from the equation, whether a lot of this divisiveness would disappear. Their first appraisal was fine, second one was low, third was fine. Normally, anyone would assume the second was simply a poor appraisal - yet they immediately made it a race issue and sought to generate the conditions to ‘prove’ it. All sounds a bit manufactured, to make a good story and to stir racial tensions.

YeBanKo 5y ago
The US media sees everything exclusive through racial lense. They really condition you to think about race all the time.
- Jansen312 5y ago
  Mostly democrats leaning/control news outlet (even Fox seems very pro democrats these days compare to older days). If you exposed yourself to US media that are not democrats-controlled typically they are more neutral on racial stuff though probably more on conservative and other more controversial topics.
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    > typically they are more neutral on racial stuff though probably more on conservative and other more controversial topics. What does the end of this mean? If you're talking about conservative sites and they are also not neutral on racial stuff when it comes to conservative topics then that's the same as mainstream media. I don't know of any hard left [bigger] news outlets. There are a number of conservative outlets. They are usually mirror images in terms of caring about race as mainstream media. Check CRT or Rittenhouse + Andrew Coffee coverage as quick recent examples. The primary difference will be the conservative outlets saying they don't care about race. The actual behavior does not show that though.

bagels 5y ago

Seems like bad science. Three samples? Taken many months apart?

nathanaldensr 5y ago
This isn't science. It's Science(TM)--in other words, propaganda masquerading as evidence.

greenyouse 5y ago

There are some fascinating practices which have all but ensured racial segregation in some major US cities. In Minneapolis there was some good reporting on how racial covenants split communities and our city's culture.[0] There was a link to racial covenants in the article that shows how prominent they still are even in more left leaning districts like the bay area.[1] I had no idea that this was a thing until a few months ago. It boggles the mind that there's no legislation for removing this nation wide. [0] https://www.tptoriginals.org/learn-about-minneapolis-history-of-racial-covenants-in-jim-crow-of-the-north-full-episode/ https://www.tptoriginals.org/learn-about-minneapolis-history... [1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Reversing-redlining-One-Silicon-Valley-town-s-16623463.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Reversing-redlin...

MomoXenosaga 5y ago

As a non US citizen we are more prone to judge people on their financial status, culture and religion. I find it odd how the black community, despite living in the US for 200 years and by every measure "American", can still be so marginalized.

BossHogg 5y ago
500 years not 200. And the reason is because those in the majority view it as benefiting them.
true_religion 5y ago
Well until the 1960s, the members of the black community couldn't even attend the same schools, use the same bathrooms, or vote in the same elections as members of the white community. Now although the laws have changed, people who were previosuly racist in the 1960s did not simply die out overnight. They had no real reason to abandon their views, so they simply maintained them and passed it down to their children. Unless they or their children actively uprooted their baises, you'll find there are still plenty of people who are biased today.

cpursley 5y ago

Here's the appraiser side of the story if you're interested in more than the drive by media narrative: https://appraisersblogs.com/why-is-only-one-side-of-the-racism-claim-appraisal-story-being-reported https://appraisersblogs.com/why-is-only-one-side-of-the-raci...

pseudalopex 5y ago
Different story.
- cpursley 5y ago
  Yes, but same premise.

jtchang 5y ago

I'm dubious that the appraisal difference was due to racial issues. Yes it might be but there is already an insane amount of random variance even between appraisals done during the same time. These appraisals were done with significant time between. A few days could mean huge differences by itself due to way comps are pulled (something new could have closed within that timeframe).

theklr 5y ago
Sorry, historical evidence begs to differ. These laws have only been in place in many cases in America for less than a century known as redlining and unfortunately most places have not made the said adjustments needed to remove the systemic problems that it created.
- dude187 5y ago
  > These laws have only been in place in many cases in America for less than a century Bloodletting has only been rejected as a viable treatment for most illnesses for less then a century. Lets not delude ourselves into thinking that it's not still commonplace...
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