A Black woman selling her East Liberty home made an experiment of her appraisals before leaving Pittsburgh. At one appraisal, she presented the house with signs of Black ownership. For the second, she wiped signs of Black ownership and replaced them with suggestions of white ownership.
The second appraisal, conducted three days after the first, was $36,000 higher. A PublicSource story describing the test spurred a housing discrimination complaint, filed with the federal housing department. That complaint is expected to lead to an investigation and a conciliation process. If that doesn’t work, the matter could go before a judge.
The complaint process could eventually shed light on bias in our local appraisal industry, also a national issue. Without PublicSource’s initial reporting, it’s unlikely the woman who filed the complaint, or the federal housing department, would have known about the disparate appraisals.
Read our latest Unbalanced story now to learn how property assessments are creating winners and losers.
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