What is being appraised? The house as a home or as an asset to be used to accumulate value through scarcity/boost the value of others nearby?
That year, it appraised at over $1.4 million but a year later, they said it was appraised at just $995,000.
When the appraisal came in lower than they expected, the couple knew something was wrong.
[…]
The couple decided to ask a White friend of theirs to pretend to be Tenisha to see if they would get a higher appraisal. With their friend, Jan, pretending to be the homeowner, the couple removed all photos of them and their family.
[…]
After doing this and with Jan’s help the new appraisal came in—nearly $1.5 million dollars, more than the appraisal roughly a month before.
So they lost about 1/3 of the value based on how the appraiser thought someone would feel about buying a home from a black family — who could afford a 7 figure home in Marin county. Nothing to do with the home or location…
They’re now suing the appraiser, who is White, claiming she used unsuitable, racially biased comparable home sales or “comps” in determining their home’s worth—giving it a low market value.
It doesn’t say how far away the “comps” were but if they factored in the race of the owner, they may not have been near the property in question. So the imputed location, a/k/a proximity, was the real factor, preserving the “neighborhood values” of the other properties. They appraised it as a black-owned home, not as a home, full stop.
It must be understood that the value here is in the land, even though the appraisal fluctuated by half a million dollars. The location in Marin is the value and the appraisal reflects the scarcity of that finite asset. If land was valued for its highest and best use — commercial or residential — it wouldn’t be a speculative asset and none of this chicanery and wealth extraction would be an issue.