It's worth noting that the NYT fails to include any kind of the usual background establishing that there is a real effect here; the one link they provide, to th

It's worth noting that the NYT fails to include any kind of the usual background establishing that there is a real effect here; the one link they provide, to their own past reporting on the wild inaccuracy of home appraisals in general, shows that you can trivially manufacture these sorts of differences: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/realestate/commercial/appraisals-overvalue-real-estate-study-finds.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/realestate/commercial/app... > In general, appraisals overvalued the properties, the study found. Of the 2,076 properties it examined, 64 percent were appraised at values that exceeded the sale price, by a total of $1.4 billion, while 35.5 percent were appraised at less than the sale price, by a total of $661 million. At the extremes, in 121 instances, appraised value was >200% sale price, and in 132 examples, the appraisal was <70% of the sale price. It is like “a game of horseshoes and throwing grenades,” the authors wrote of the results. “Close is good enough.”