WUSA9: The Prince George’s County Council unanimously passed a bill outlawing home appraisal bias Tuesday.
“If you buy here and think you may be discriminated against, that’s a deterrent,” explained Prince George’s County Councilman At-Large Mel Franklin to WUSA9 in October.
The Real Estate Appraisal Bias Ban of 2023 clarifies a ban on home appraisal bias, directs the County Office of Human Rights to provide education and enforcement of the law, and according to Councilman Franklin, imposes a fine on real estate appraisers who discriminate against homeowners involved in the appraisal process.
For two years, WUSA9 profiled allegations of home appraisal bias in Prince George’s Countyand throughout Maryland. Jacqulyn Priestly and her husband said their Bowie home was undervalued by about $500,000.
“How is it that the wood and the walls and the nails that were used… how are they worth less than what they cost us?” wondered Priestly when she spoke with WUSA 9 in 2021.
Her neighbor and now Maryland Delegate Kym Taylor said her house appraised $300 dollars below the purchase price during the height of the COVID real estate market.
“It could have been a real deal killer,” she told WUSA9 in 2022.
Both of these homes are in Prince George’s County, where African Americans make up a majority of the population.
Data from the Brookings Institute shows that owner-occupied homes in Black neighborhoods are undervalued by about $48,000 dollars on average. Since our initial reporting, the Biden Administration enacted nationwide policy changes aimed at enhancing transparency and addressing bias in the home appraisal process. Similar changes were made in the state legislature in Maryland.
