How to Increase the Black Homeownership Rate

Nicole Friedman

Wall Street Journal

Dec 16, 2020

While the overall U.S. homeownership rate has risen in recent years, the rate among Black households remains low. Black families have a much lower median net worth compared to white families, and homeownership is one of the reasons why. Some companies are offering AI-assisted property valuations instead of in-person appraisals. But these valuations have the same biases that appraisers and lenders and real-estate agents have, too, since the algorithms tend to be written by people with unconscious bias. "The way you get past what really amounts to a distrust of Black people is to invest in Black people," says Andre M. Perry, a fellow at the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program.