A Black couple is speaking out after settling a lawsuit with a California real estate company who appraised their home at $500,000 less than when their White friend posed as the owner.

Tenisha Tate-Austin and Paul Austin hired the Miller and Perotti Real Estate Appraisers in 2020, who deemed their home in Marin City to be worth around $995,000, according to the Austins' civil complaint. After an appraisal from a second company, it was valued at $1,482,500.

During the second appraisal, the Austins "erased any evidence of their racial identities inside their house, removing family photos and African-themed art" and asked their White friend to pose as the homeowner, displaying "photos of her own family," reported Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California, the organization that backed the lawsuit.

The settlement "included an undisclosed monetary amount" and requires that the Miller group attend a training session on the history of racial discrimination in real estate.

"Even decades after the Fair Housing Act of 1968 we still find evidence of housing discrimination fairly often," FHANC Supervising Attorney Julia Howard-Gibbon told NBC, adding that the tactic has become increasingly popular within Black communities.

"We've heard from a lot of Black homeowners and this is kind of a known thing," she said. "We've been hearing that Black homeowners have been doing this for years. They know to take down their family photos and have a white friend stand in for them."

While the Austins were able to refinance their mortgage as they originally intended, their interest rates went up in the time between appraisals. Tate-Austin said that the outcome was favorable compared to what many low-income families of color experience. To her, the hardest part was erasing their identity.

"We know of other Black families who either couldn’t get a loan because of a discriminatory appraisal and therefore either lost the opportunity to buy or sell a home, or they had to sell their home because they had an unaffordable loan," Tate-Austin said in a statement. “Having to erase our identity to get a better appraisal was a wrenching experience."