Racial Bias in Home Appraisals Investigated in 'Lowballed'

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KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 12 December 2022

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After Paul Austin and Tenisha Tate-Austin got an appraisal on their Marin City house that seemed unusually low, they took down art and photos that identified them as Black and asked a white friend to pose as the homeowner with a new appraiser. That appraisal came back nearly half-million dollars higher. Stories like this led ABC7 race and culture reporter Julian Glover to investigate bias in home appraisals. His one and a half year investigation found widespread undervaluing of Black and Latino people’s homes nationwide. We’ll talk to Julian Glover about his documentary, Lowballed. Guests: Julian Glover, ABC7 news anchor and race & social justice reporter, executive producer of “Our America: Lowballed" Paul Austin, Marin City homeowner featured in documentary, "Lowballed" Julia Howard-Gibson, Supervising Attorney with the Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California Dominique Curtis, licensed residential appraiser and realtor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	Support for Kikiwee Podcasts comes from Rancho La Puerta, a resort with 85 years of wellness experience.
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0:14.2	Rancho LePuerta.com
0:15.7	Greetings, Boomtown.
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0:32.3	From KQD.
0:48.4	From KQD in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
0:53.2	A residential real estate appraisal aspires to be an objective measure of a home's value.
0:55.8	An appraiser uses the sales of comparable homes nearby to come up with an estimate for the fair market value. But within the bloodless
1:01.2	bureaucracy and paperwork of an appraisal, there's a huge amount of wiggle room for appraisers to use
1:06.0	their judgment. The comps they use more or less determine the value that they'll put on the property,
1:11.2	and what's considered comparable or even in the same neighborhood is quite subjective.
1:15.8	A new ABC7 documentary Lowballed argues that appraisers, 95% of whom are white,
1:21.8	systematically undervalue the homes of black and brown people.
1:25.5	We'll talk about the evidence and what the Biden administration
1:27.8	is trying to do about it after this news.
1:36.7	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. After Paul Austin and Tenisha Tate Austin got an appraisal
	...

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