As the Trump administration continues its crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, it appears that the Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity (PAVE) policies are being swept away amid a laundry list of actions.
Once led by Marcia Fudge, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Susan Rice, a White House domestic policy adviser under the Biden administration, the PAVE task force was established in 2021. Its goal was to combat appraisal discrimination and promote fair and accurate appraisals for all, regardless of race or ethnicity.
Over the weekend, however, web pages associated with PAVE have barred consumer access by displaying a blank page with the message, “You are not authorized to access this page.” Other pages, including a speech read by Fudge to mark the first anniversary of the creation of the task force, have also been taken down.
“At this point, the website change seems mostly symbolic since the key changes introduced under the PAVE plan remain in place,” said Dallas Kiedrowski, the owner and certified residential appraiser of Olympic Valuation. “For example, the GSEs’ Selling Guide was updated in 2024 to classify ‘subjective language’ as an ‘unacceptable appraisal practice,’ and USPAP’s ethics rule was revised to explicitly address bias and discrimination.”
“One could argue these updates should have been implemented long ago as they align with fair housing principles, but since they were introduced under the PAVE banner, it will be interesting to see how federal agencies engage moving forward,” Kiedrowski added. “Will the FHFA push the GSEs to roll back the recent Selling Guide changes? Will the ASC pressure the Appraisal Foundation to reverse the USPAP revisions?”
Kiedrowski thinks that the websites going dark is related to the Trump administration’s hastiness to delete everything tied to DEI. “I would bet money on the fact that they’re going to put out something anti-PAVE,” he said.
On Friday, Jan. 31, NPR reported on a roundup of webpages purged by the Trump administration, including several from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with references to LGBTQ+ health and the website of the National Institutes of Health’s Sexual & Gender Minority Research Office. The administration has not publicly acknowledged the websites going dark.
“The bottom line is that accurate appraisals are essential to a functioning mortgage market, and wherever appraisals are artificially high or low, that’s unhealthy for the market and Realtors and mortgage bankers. Mortgage lenders and a wide range of affordable housing advocates understand this basic fact,” said David Dworkin, president and CEO of the National Housing Conference.
“Ultimately, I’m not convinced that lasting change is going to occur as the result of a government program. There has been a lot of good work done by the PAVE task force and you can’t reverse engineer that, but ultimately, it’s going to be up to the consumers of appraisals to ensure that they are accurate, and that should go on regardless of what this administration or any administration says or does.”
Dworkin added that he’s not shocked the PAVE website has gone dark.
“We’re going to have to revisit this nation’s commitment to civil rights and examine whether we believe in what we’ve been saying for the last 50 years,” he said. “Clearly, not everybody does, but those of us who are committed to civil rights and fair housing are going to have to step up in ways we had not thought necessary in the past.”
The move aligns with Project 2025, a series of proposals published by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation that many of the Trump administration’s early actions appear closely aligned with. Under the proposals, the administration should look to put an immediate end to the “Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity (PAVE) policies and reverse any Biden administration actions that threaten to undermine the integrity of real estate appraisals.”
