A Black couple’s home was undervalued by $300,000. Now the US is investigating

Two Johns Hopkins University were offered nearly $300,000 more when they ‘whitewashed’ their home for a second appraisal. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP

The Department of Justice on Monday intervened in a federal lawsuit alleging that an appraiser and a mortgage lender discriminated against a couple who are both Johns Hopkins University professors by significantly lowering the value of their Baltimore home and denying a loan because they are Black.

In response to a pending motion to dismiss the lawsuit by the mortgage lender, loanDepot, justice department civil rights attorneys filed a “statement of interest” in a federal district court in Maryland arguing that the case raised significant questions about appraisal racial bias, noting that President Joe Biden had identified the issue “as a priority for the federal government”.