AS: Houses in white communities sell for more green
You might think that evaluating how much houses are worth is an objective process: that you can measure the square footage, take into account how many amenities it has such as bathrooms and appliances, survey the size of the lot it sits on, consider its location, and come up with a number. Why does housing valuation contribute to racial inequality?
It turns out that homes in Black neighborhoods are valued consistently less than homes in white neighborhoods, even adjusting for other variable, as Andre Perry of the Brookings Institute explains.
Brookings also hosts an interactive site allowing exploration of its report on the devaluation of Black neighborhoods, with data for 113 metropolitan areas.
Such unequal evaluation contributes significantly to racial inequality, because one of the main ways American families build and pass on wealth is through the value of the houses that they own. In addition, real estate website Zillow has found that homeowners of color have a higher portion of their wealth tied up in their homes than do white people. Zillow has also found significant racial disparities in home valuation by race, at both the state and the metropolitan level.
This is the case even adjusting for local amenities and family income, as researchers at the eruka/Weidenbaum Center on the Economy Government, and Public Policy have found.
Interestingly enough, while Zillow claims that differences in value have decreased over the past several decades, the other researchers argue that the opposite has happened more recently. In other words, although we may not have conclusive evidence, there is at least some evidence suggesting that racial differences in housing values are getting worse, not better.
