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“And to live in the neighborhood. So the value that we gave to the house was very appropriate — and the appraisal came in $100,000 less (than our value).”

According to Gill, the buyers, who were White, decided to pay the extra $100,000 out of pocket because they knew the original asking price was fair.

“ e agent and the buyers thought that the price was reasonable and that the appraiser made a big mistake,” Gill said. “We tried to dispute the appraisal and failed. He said he’s not going to change it.” e study found that, based on over 12 million appraisals from Jan. 1, 2016 to Dec. 31, 2020, 8.6% of Black applicants receive an appraisal value lower than contract price, compared to 6.5% of White applicants. In the study, Freddie Mac said it would be valuable to conduct further research to understand why this gap exists. ere are e orts to change the process. According to the Urban Institute, a nonpro t research organization, 89% of all property appraisers and assessors are White while only 2 percent are Black and 5 percent are Hispanic. Addressing the lack of diversity in the profession could improve outcomes for Black and Hispanic communities, the organization said. e Appraiser Diversity Initiative, a program led by mortgage-buying companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Gill said the homebuyers noted that the low appraisal was probably due to racial discrimination.

According to a 2021 study by Freddie Mac, a government-sponsored mortgage-buying company, this experience was not rare. Black and Latino mortgage applicants get lower appraisal values than the contract price more often than White applicants, according to the study.

In a report by the National Fair Housing Alliance, however, personal stories like that of Gill’s clients make the case that the appraisal gap comes from racial or ethnic discrimination.

One of these stories, originally reported by the Washington Post, was about a mixed-race couple in Denver. An appraiser greeted by the White wife valued the house at $550,000, whereas one greeted by the Black husband valued it at $405,000. e lower value appraisal report explicitly compared the home to others in a nearby predominantly Black neighborhood, even though that’s not where the house was located.

Since 1968, housing discrimination based on race has been illegal under the Fair Housing Act. Nine years before that federal law was signed, Colorado was the rst state to pass its own fair housing laws, according to the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority. Although it is illegal, discrimination in housing based on race or color still happens, according to the Department of Justice. e department has led cases related to lending discrimination, including a 2012 Wells Fargo case in which the bank was forced to pay a settlement for its pattern of discrimination against quali ed Black and African American and Hispanic and Latino borrowers.

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FROM and civil rights organization the National Urban League, is teaching new potential appraisers with a diversity of identities in an effort to close this gap.

Approaching inclusion in real estate from a wider perspective, a program through the Urban Land Institute Colorado works to train women and people of color in development. This program, called the Real Estate Diversity Initiative, aims to create urban landscapes that serve diverse communities.

“I think trust in communitybuilding is key,” Executive Director Rodney Milton said. “When developers build projects, they need community support because they’re shaping the community. And who better to be equipped to strengthen a community, to build it out, to revitalize it, then the folks who are from that community?”

Welcome to Fairhaven

Housing is a source of discrimination complaints. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission Annual report found that 14% of complaints were claims about housing issues.

Chantal Sundberg, a Black Realtor who works in the metro Denver area, said she has not witnessed or experienced discrimination in her work with her clients, most of whom are Black.

“Everyone is treated equal, whether it’s borrowing or buying homes,” she said.

Sundberg witnessed the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when hundreds of thousands of members of a minority ethnic group called the Tutsi were murdered by members of the Hutu ethnic majority. In her eyes, although it might be important to talk about topics of racial discrimination, focusing on them too much can have unintended consequences.

“When we emphasize them so much, it creates more division rather than unity,” she said.

Still, discrimination is an ongoing concern for the National Association of Realtors and Brokers.

Sundberg said Realtors are trained to address discrimination issues.

And to Gill, the Realtor who helped Johnson sell her home, the association’s training is not enough to help all real estate agents.

“Race is a part of it, but it’s not the in-depth, you know, ‘how to understand if you’re being a racist or not,’” he said.

To address such concerns, the association released an immersive online simulation in 2020 that aims to train agents to recognize and avoid acting on their own biases.

The program is part of the association’s Fair Housing Act Plan, which leaders created to emphasize accountability and culture change. The training is meant to make housing more accessible and affordable to people of color.

A White Colorado Community Media reporter went through the online simulation, which takes place in a fictional town called Fairhaven. The simulation puts a person in the shoes of potential homebuyers who are experiencing discrimination.

One scenario is based on a federal court case, Clinton-Brown v. Hardick. In 2020, Todd Brown and Ebony Clinton-Brown filed a suit against Helene L. and John Hardick alleging violations of the Fair Housing Act and Rhode Island law.

The case claims the Hardicks noticed Clinton-Brown’s first name and asked their real estate agent if Ebony was Black. When they learned she was, the Hardicks refused to sell their property and the agent withdrew the listing upon the Hardicks’ request, ceasing communication.

Throughout the simulation, agents attempt to theoretically sell four homes within six months while coming across day-to-day happenings including the views of colleagues and encounter issues like language barriers. The simulator provides for moments of reflection in the sales process. At the end of the training, agents are given feedback.

According to Alexia Smokler of the National Association of Realtors, the organization decided to pursue the simulator after a Newsday investigation revealed alleged housing discrimination on Long

Island, New York.

“We wanted to show how discrimination plays out in real life scenarios and so we drew on real fair housing cases and frequently asked questions from our members to create these simulated scenarios so they could see how discrimination looks,” Smokler said.

Scenarios in the simulation are based on true stories. They include testimonials to show discrimination from the perspective of race, disability and LGBTQ+ identities.

“We’ve had people tell us watching these videos — they’re very emotional videos — that they are in tears, that they’re angry, that they’re going to stand up for their clients and also we’ve had folks say ‘I wasn’t aware of these sorts of things are going on’ and ‘this has really opened my eyes,’” Smokler said.

Brian Arnold, who used to work with clients at Aurora Warms the Night, said training like Fairhaven could help combat discrimination. But he noted that since the Fairhaven simulation is not a mandatory step in real estate agent licensing, it is challenging to ensure people who need the training actually do it.