Changing the home appraisal industry
The home appraisal industry is overwhelmingly white, male and aging: the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that of the 75,000 appraisers in the United States, 97% are white, and other surveys show that nearly three-quarters are both male and older than 45.
This lack of representation, Black real estate professionals say, is a glaring problem, contributing to a persistent, widespread practice in the home appraisal industry to give higher values to homes when the occupants are white, and devalue them if the owners are Black.
“The issue of discriminatory appraisals is a major challenge in our community,” said Lydia Pope, president of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers, an advocacy organization for Black professionals in the industry.
The simplest solution, Pope said, is recruiting more Black appraisers, and particularly Black women. The New York Times spoke with three of them about racism, representation and cautious optimism in the industry. The responses have been lightly edited for clarity.
Jillian White
Jillian White, 41, has been a certified appraiser for 20 years. She estimates that of 75,000 appraisers in the United States, she’s one of about 300 Black women actively working in the industry. Part of the issue is the appraisal industry’s training structure: In addition to the cost of education, most states also require aspiring appraisers to find a mentor to spend hundreds of hours or more training them. For Black people — and particularly Black women — looking to enter the profession, the lack of mentors within their communities is often a dead end.
White said she is driven to serve as an adviser for young women eager to enter the industry. She recently launched her own consultancy to help homeowners understand their rights if they feel their home was appraised unfairly.
My new venture is a combination of consulting, educating and speaking. It’s about putting out content that educates the homeowner on what to do if you get an appraisal back and it is low and you think it is due to bias or any other reason.
Ayako Marsh
Ayako Marsh, 54, lives in Baltimore and has been an appraiser for 22 years. She was previously president of the Appraisal Institute’s Washington, D.C., chapter. To attract more Black appraisers, she said, the profession needs to be marketed as a family business that can be passed down from generation to generation.
What we’re finding is that when we try to introduce the industry to young Black people, they know nothing about it. So we’re
trying to catch them while they’re in college. There are a lot of programs developing around the country to bring new appraisers into the industry. But on the flip side, it’s going to be another two, three or even five years before they’re working in the market.
There needs to be mandatory bias training within the appraisal industry. And there has to be a more active role by
lenders in banks to develop an appraisal bias review process.
Yetunde Oshodi
In New York state, the New York Mortgage Coalition is covering the cost of appraisal training and materials for dozens of aspiring Black appraisers, the majority of them women. Yetunde Oshodi, 36, is one of them. She lives in Harlem and runs diversity
and equity training programs for nonprofit organizations. She became interested in a second career as an appraiser after spending three years trying — and failing — to buy a home for herself.
It’s no wonder that the home appraiser field is not really talked about in our communities. Without this training program, I would never have been able to keep going while working full time because there are just so many classes you have to complete. All the time, after work, I’m studying.
The fact that there are so many white male appraisers is why I want to be an advocate. I understand that for community wellness, diversity plays a huge part. It makes me feel like, OK, I have to do this. As a woman and a person of color, my perspectives will be different.