Lauren, I hear what you’re saying, but there’s a piece of this people outside the trenches don’t always see. Some appraisers aren’t avoiding certain neighborhoods because of race, they’re avoiding risk. After years of baseless bias claims blowing up into multi year investigations, some appraisers simply won’t touch refinance work in predominantly Black or Brown areas anymore. It’s not racist, it’s self preservation. Unethical? Yes. But racism isn’t the driver, the system is.

Look at Steve Orlowski or Shane Lanham. Both spent years fighting accusations that never should’ve survived the first week. Steve lost clients, income, his reputation took a hit, his health suffered. Shane went through the same grind. There are hundreds of these cases. Not one appraiser has been found guilty in a court of law, yet the damage is done long before HUD or a board finally comes back with, sorry, no bias found.

When the process itself can destroy your livelihood, people start drawing hard lines about what assignments they’ll take. That’s not hidden prejudice, that’s a profession reacting to a system that punishes first & sorts out the facts years later.

Yea, the appraiser can’t retaliate, but the complainant can. How ironic is that? Ridiculous. I’ve never seen a profession treated so badly for so long. No fight seems to help. I’ve been appraising for more than 35 years and I’ve been involved with many of the appraisal organizations over the years and have always been an advocate for the appraiser and tried over and over to get appraisers to come together under one voice. We are a tough group, but not tough enough for the fight.

Thanks. There have been a few recent interesting publications.

Came across a few new pieces today while looking for this amc related AI letter, which I’ve posted last. Check this out, a Woody Fincham article. He used to write for Appraisal Scoop.

https://www.appraisalinstitute.org/insights-and-resources/insights/blog/what-the-amc-defense-leaves-out

I did not post the initial pro amc AI article he’s responding to. In fact I did not even bother to read it. They do a great job at illustrating the conflicts of interest. All the amc people got all rich while everyone else can’t wait to get out either to quit or find completely different lines of work than mortgage lending. Severely imbalanced assignment distribution trends. With amc’s you play ball and pay gratuity fees or you ride the bench. They refer to this as ‘performance grading’.

An excellent piece by Miller on the AI from this week. I’d argue his stats although straightforward linearly, do not fully represent the scale of residential small business appraisal loss. At the same time total license head count fell, commercial licenses did well, and non gse appraisers made their way elsewhere. The most important and influential user of appraisers services in this country, is where 40k or more appraisers exited, driven out with no meaningful representation by the appraisal trade groups. Someone should elect Miller in charge of everything. He’d do a better job.

https://housingnotes.com/p/appraisal-institute-is-being-sued

2024 letter. A decade and a half later, the AI wrote a letter regarding amc fees. Then let the amc managers continue to run the show instead of meaningful follow up. Talk about too little too late and extreme polar opposite messaging on the amc matter.

https://www.appraisers.org/docs/default-source/advocacy/appraisal-orgs-to-cfpb-on-mortgage-fee-rfi.pdf?sfvrsn=256bd440_1

Was it all a big ruse? When will the TAF remove the bias-class requirement now that the facts have finally been recognized? Will the AI stand up for the appraisers and say no to the bias class requirement? Nope. One more class requirement, one more bucket of $. Is that all the respect given to the members they represent? The AI can still make the decision and lead the industry out of this mess.

Lori Alexandra per one of his friends that I know, Shane is doing better. Less stressed and thankfully has a couple of new clients.

Donna Halfpenny I was hoping to have something more recent. He’s the one I really am worried about. I saw that appraisal.

Lori Alexandra Shane Lanham case?

Donna Halfpenny have you heard anything about the Baltimore case?

No one. They are protected by “no retaliation suit” rule

HUD, discrimination laws, housing and banking regulations, DEI, and the many institutional initiatives that are the basis of this arbitrary and tyrannical persecution of random, honest, and competent appraisers is pure politics. This bureaucratic quagmire has been foisted on every profession, private business, and association in the country; we only understand this case because it is what we know about. And it was all foisted on us by self-righteous ideologues of a “leftist” mind-set using politics as a weapon. “Leftists” avoiding accountability for this hijacking of the political machinery, especially when the resulting disaster was long predicted by the “far-right” manifests to the point of being undeniable, can not be swept under the rug by “leftists” pretending to be ignorant of their own complicity. Credibility, indeed. It is long past time for a reckoning.

Paid media mouthpieces. I defer to your quite better memory than mine.

Quite amazing anyone was able to keep track of all this nonsense.

That was the program; A fast and furious blitz to dismantle what was left of traditional appraisal process and install what was long awaited in the technical development pipeline.

The appraisers are biased because of to many white people was merely a convenient excuse which fit the popular sentiment at the time. One which was also manufactured for more reasons than just appraisal. This was not the only industry which experienced fundamental operational changes. Yet, may have been among the simplest and easiest sectors to capture, the trade group representatives long since having capitulated and been eagerly compliant to appease ‘stake holder interests.’ That’s why and how they were able to make such a big grandiose show of things with the PAVE task force and various congressional hearings.

“These homes would be worth more if they were located somewhere else. We deserve valuation equality regardless of location, education, crime, or economic factors!” The helicopter argument. Who’s still buying that? Apparently the TAF. Reddit banned my account exactly when I posted in a thread that was removed from r/appraisal, where an appraiser commented that the ‘valuation bias’ class, ‘appears to be written by people whom don’t understand what valuation bias really is’. I had commented something regarding; Is it not also a form of discrimination if everyone except you is a protected class person? Then someone tells me that sub may be managed by amc persons. Limited hangouts. Figures.

The suspiciously absent voice; Appraisal trade groups turning the page. Why would they when they have now secured not one, but two recurrant classes with associated materials their captive audience is coerced into paying for on an indefinite cycle.

Ran across this Cindy Chance article from 02/2026 this year. Had not noticed this. Might as well have been written yesterday.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-regulation-calcified-appraisal-education-failed-banks-chance-acere

I don’t think Working RE is as credible of a source as they imagine. They perpetuate the amc debacle, being an insurer of the amc industry themselves. Umbrella policies. Central planning never works. Thanks.

Baggins, little housekeeping on the housekeeping: Working RE didn’t “break” that angle. They wrote about it a year after a colleague of mine dug into the Horton/Black Knight connection, pulled the documents, and laid it all out on AppraisersBlogs. Here’s the original deep‑dive, receipts and all:
https://appraisersblogs.com/why-is-only-one-side-of-the-racism-claim-appraisal-story-being-reported

What still amazes me is how the national outlets ran full‑speed with the “racist appraiser” narrative while quietly skipping over everything that didn’t fit the script, the conflicting statements, the missing timeline details, the professional background that somehow never made it into a single headline. The article shows exactly how one side of the story got amplified and the other side got buried.

Funny how “journalistic curiosity” seems to stop right where the inconvenient facts begin.

Little housekeeping here. Working RE published articles regarding the initial complaints, which was related to Black Knight investment group.

https://www.workingre.com/discrimination-in-appraisals/

Article Quote: One interesting twist that appraisers have been quick to point out is that Abena Horton is currently the Assistant General Counsel & Vice President at Black Knight, a provider of integrated technology, data and analytics for lenders and mortgage services. Black Knight also provides, you guessed it, Automated Valuation Models that provide an opinion of value for real estate. As a potential competitor to appraisers, some appraisers have publicly wondered if Black Knight has a vested interest in seeing such a controversial story about appraisers hit the national news circuit.

I performed a rather detailed analysis just for me to look at housing differences in the neighborhood in question. From one property to the next value variance is substantial. I’m pretty sure this was the zillow pricing map for that particular instance. Of course what nobody wanted to talk about, yet was among the most important talking points, was that an amc whom sought discounted 24hr/48hr turn times and raked half the appraisal fee was involved. Obviously this compromised the appraisers ability and motivation to take the time to provide quality detailed property value analysis.

Funny coincidence. When the SPLC lawsuit hit the news I had ran an internet research for any tie ins to the fictitious appraisal bias narrative.

https://nationalfairhousing.org/nfha-splc-statement/

NFHA defends the SPLC. Birds of a feather flock together.

Let’s not forget FHFA was in on the charade too, conditioning their executive compensation based on scorecard rating criteria. Several of which included using full service appraisers less, using automated valuation systems more, and encouraging state complaints against independent appraisers. Image attached.