In The Appraisal Foundation’s (TAF) March newsletter, President David Bunton shared some of the organization’s initiatives for the month.
“As you know, promoting diversity in the appraisal profession has been a major focus of our organization over the past few years,” Bunton said in the TAF newsletter. “Starting in 2020 with our symposium on appraisal bias, we have been leading the profession in efforts to root out discrimination and promote diversity to build public trust in appraisals and ensure the appraiser population reflects the communities they serve.”
Some of TAF’s March initiatives have included:
- Sponsoring the Appraiser Diversity Initiative to support new entrants with diverse backgrounds entering the profession,
- Enacting recommendations from a diversity, equity and inclusion consultant to ensure our board selection practices promoted a diverse board,
- Establishing the Practical Applications of Real Estate Appraisal (PAREA) as an alternative pathway for aspiring appraisers to fulfill their experience requirements,
- Requiring fair housing and valuation bias education for all appraisers throughout their careers,
- Overhauling the Ethics Rule to make it crystal clear that appraisers must follow all applicable fair housing laws, and
- Forming the Council to Advance Residential Equity, a group of fair housing, consumer, and civil rights advocates, to provide feedback to all of our boards.
“We have done so much in just a few short years, but we also want to ensure we understand the progress we are making. One of the ways we are measuring the impact of these projects is through our demographic survey,” Bunton said. “The first survey was released in 2021 to establish baseline demographics for the appraisal profession. As we expected, the results of this first survey reflected what we have anecdotally known about the diversity of the profession.”