In recent years, dozens of homeowners have made allegations of discrimination, trying to prove bias through what is known as the “whitewashing experiment.” Homeowners scrub their property of any signs that Black people are the occupants.
After a white appraiser gave their Baltimore-area house a value of $472,000 last year, Nathan Connolly and his wife, Shani Mott, both professors at Johns Hopkins University, conducted a whitewashing experiment, removing family photos, posters and books from their home and asking a white friend to stand in for them at the door. A second appraiser, unaware a Black family lived in the home, gave the property a value of $750,000.
While many accounts of systematic bias in the appraisal industry have focused on Black homeowners, Dr. Korver-Glenn and Dr. Howell found that the pricing difference was greatest for homes in areas where the population is comprised primarily of other people of color. In 2021, their report says, homes in white neighborhoods were appraised at three times the value of comparable homes in communities where residents were primarily of American Indian, Alaska Native, Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander descent.
On average, homes in neighborhoods where the majority of residents are white are appraised for $371,000 more than in neighborhoods where the majority of residents are people of color, the researchers found. This gap in values has increased 75 percent since 2013.
The equity gains that come with homeownership are a key driver of generational wealth in America. But white homeowners are also earning them much more quickly than other groups. During the pandemic, when home values skyrocketed — nationally, home prices increased 45 percent from December 2019 to June 2022 — home values in white neighborhoods increased by an average of $136,000 over the past two years. In communities of color, however, comparable homes increased in value by only $60,000.
In addition, the researchers found that the hotter the housing market, the wider the racial inequality in housing prices: In cities where price inflation has jumped the most in the past two years, like Austin, Miami and San Diego, houses with white homeowners were now being valued by as much as 43 percent more than comparable houses owned by people of color.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nytimes.com
