In 2022, numerous mainstream media outlets seized on the experience of married Johns Hopkins professors Nathan Connolly and Shani Mott as clear evidence of systemic racism in the home-appraisal industry. The episode gained national traction after the New York Times published a story in August headlined: “Home Appraised With a Black Owner: $472,000. With a White Owner: $750,000.” ABC and NPR soon amplified the narrative that racial bias in appraisals is real and widespread, locking black Americans out of building home equity and long-term wealth.
What began with great media fanfare, however, ended in silence. When a lawsuit—for which I served as an expert witness for the defense—finally reached judgment last month, a federal court dismissed the discrimination claims. The same outlets that had trumpeted the allegations early on or framed the plaintiffs’ 2024 settlement with the lender as implicit validation of their claims, never returned to cover the case’s conclusion. Their silence leaves the public with a distorted impression of widespread appraiser bias.
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Yet the court’s dismissal of the claims should not have been a surprise. Research from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where I work, has long shown that claims of widespread appraiser bias are overstated and that the methodologies used to support them are deeply flawed.
Critics have cited the Biden administration’s Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity (PAVE) task force and studies, including a Brookings Institution report, as evidence of systemic undervaluation of homes in black neighborhoods. But these analyses largely fail to control for such critical socioeconomic factors as income, education, marriage rates, credit scores, and wealth. When we at AEI accounted for such variables, the racial valuation gap nearly disappeared.
Even when limiting samples to majority-white neighborhoods, large valuation differences persisted when sorting by socioeconomic status. Location and socioeconomic factors explain far more than race. Fortunately, the Trump administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development has recently reversed some PAVE-related policies—an acknowledgement that the framework was rushed and methodologically unsound.
The courts are also recognizing this reality. In the Connolly–Mott case, the plaintiffs relied heavily on an expert sociologist, Junia Howell. Like the Brookings study, Howell’s academic work sought to show discrimination but rested on flawed assumptions. The court excluded her from opining on appraisal methodology and ultimately found her analysis insufficient to prove discrimination.
A similar story played out in Carlos Turner et al. v. Henley Appraisals (2025), where plaintiffs relied on a “whitewashing” experiment, in which they removed family photos and cultural items and had a white friend pose as the homeowner during a second appraisal conducted a year later. The court noted that the later appraisal contained multiple admitted errors and that Henley’s valuation was well within the range of other contemporaneous appraisals. Disagreement among appraisers, in other words, does not equal discrimination.
These so-called “mystery shopper” experiments that generate headlines are deeply flawed. Take an Indianapolis case heavily covered by CNN: three appraisals of the same home came in at $125,000, $110,000, and $259,000. The media spotlighted only the highest figure, omitting the inconvenient context.
Such experiments are not randomized or controlled. The second appraiser may be influenced by owners or circumstances. Timing is often months apart, during which markets can shift dramatically. And the sample sizes are tiny, more anecdote than science.
If appraisers are to be evaluated, the benchmark should be clear: when possible, compare valuations against prior sale prices and reasonable home-price appreciation. In the Mott case, the family bought their home in 2017 for $450,000 (with concessions lowering the net price to $436,500). Federal data suggested a 12 percent to 14 percent appreciation by 2021 in the neighborhood, placing the appraised value of $472,000 well within range. In the Henley case, the so-called undervaluation was modest compared with other appraisals at the time, and far more defensible than a later, error-ridden, inflated appraisal.
Rather than chasing headlines, we should evaluate appraisers systematically. At AEI, we have shown that it is possible to screen appraisers for bias or inaccuracies based on their past work. The data already exist, and regulators could have begun this process years ago.
The Connolly–Mott case was presented as proof of systemic racism. Yet to date, no appraiser has been convicted of racial bias. While some cases have been settled under reputational pressure for lenders, others have ended with appraisers clearing their names. Inaccurate appraisals occur, as in any profession, but courts are now rightly demanding proof of intent—not statistical shortcuts or headline-grabbing anecdotes.
Photo by Tom Brenner For The Washington Post via Getty Images