[teakettle42]

Home appraisal is arbitrary and subjective — ridiculously so.

All this particular stunt shows is that two appraisers can and will appraise a home wildly differently — which anyone who has their home appraised already knew.

[dontreact]

It would be nice if more of the burden of proof were on subjective systems that historically have been full of racial bias, rather than on the communities that have historically suffered from the effects of the discrimination.

This is not an isolated incident, there are dozens of lawsuits and the study from the Brookings institute linked elsewhere in this thread.

[teakettle42]

I don’t think it would actually be nice if the burden of proof rested on the accused. This example isn’t a study of systemic bias, and is both individually and statistically meaningless.

It would be nice, however, if the paper of record didn’t call out a home appraiser, by name, in front of a national audience, with no evidence, as being a racist.

[dontreact]

I think you’ve totally ignored

A) the historical evidence about discrimination at every level in the housing system

B) the study from the brookings institute showing bias with housing appraisal

I’m also not claiming all of the burden of proof should lie with the accused.

What I am saying is given the anecdotes, lawsuits, and retrospective analysis, I think it’s fair to put more pressure on the system to help with investigating the issue more systematically.

Getting the type of statistical evidence you are talking about is expensive and I think there are enough indications that 0% of the cost seems like too low of a cost to expect a huge industry to cover.

[teakettle42]

I haven’t ignored any of that; I simply don’t believe that it is ethical to use the state’s monopoly on violence to punish individual actors (including said industry) without due process.

If you want the state to fund systematic investigation of systemic crimes, then fine.

> I’m also not claiming all of the burden of proof should lie with the accused.

None of the burden of proof should lie with the accused.

[dontreact]

There isn't really always a clean separation between private and state actors when it comes to housing (i.e. Fannie Mae has appraisers https://singlefamily.fanniemae.com/learning-center/applicati...)

So I think we are probably aligned that Government Sponsored Enterprises should be spending some time looking into this given the (weaker) evidence that's already there.

If systemic issues with appraisal are found there, it seems fair to me that there should be some regulation and/or state-sponsored investigation of whether the same systemic issues are happening with purely private appraisal.

[origin_path]

So, guilty until proven innocent, but where the standards of innocence are undefined statistical measures that nobody will commit to up front? Sounds mediaeval.