Responding to presidential candidate Joe Biden’s call to “establish a national standard for housing appraisals,” the Appraisal Institute (AI) said in a letter that a new standard is “unnecessary because one already exists,” according to a post on the AI website.
AI’s letter to Biden’s campaign agreed with his stated desire to end discriminatory and unfair practices in the housing market, and it noted that the association shared his expressed wish to tackle any racial bias that could lead to homes in communities of color potentially being appraised below their market value.
“But the reality is that national appraisal standards and ethics requirements already require appraisers to perform their work with impartiality, objectivity and independence, without bias,” AI President Jefferson L. Sherman said in the letter. “Real estate appraisers are not the culprit.”
AI’s letter noted that under USPAP, appraisers “must not use or rely on unsupported conclusions relating to characteristics such as race, color, religion, national origin, gender, marital status, familial status, age, and receipt of public assistance income, handicap, or an unsupported conclusion that homogeneity of such characteristics is necessary to maximize value.”
“To be quite frank, the assertion that appraisers would systematically undervalue or overvalue real estate due to these factors is absurd and shows a profound misunderstanding of the real estate valuation profession,” the letter said. “Appraisers have nothing to gain by such behavior, and in doing so we would lose the hard-fought public trust we have achieved over many, many years.
“Since national appraisal standards and ethics requirements already are in place, and since those requirements are enforced as law, there is no need for additional standards. We urge you to reconsider your position, and we look forward to working with you to tackle community and economic development challenges facing this country,” the letter concluded.