The Lot History for Obama’s House and the Vacant Lot
Somehow this crap keeps coming up at different sites.
It helps to have friends at City Hall. Among other positions, Michelle was appointed twice to sit on the board of the Commission of Chicago Landmarks for two consecutive terms. Michelle maintained this board seat from 1998 to March 2005, although normally a member only serves one 4 year term.
Flush from the success of Barack’s speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the Obamas decided it was time to find a residence more fitting for their anticipated new status. Barack’s 1995 autobiography Dreams of My Father soared, and they knew Alan Keyes was no threat to their future success in the US Senate elections.
Sitting on the Commission of Chicago Landmarks board, Michelle knew of a permit, waiting for review and approval to sell, for a designated Historical Georgian revival home built in 1910 with four fireplaces, glass-door bookcases fashioned from Honduran mahogany, and a 1,000-bottle wine cellar owned by a doctor in Kenwood. The Commission is supported not only by donations and taxes but also by charges for permits. It’s a pretty extensive process, and they want a complete history of the house and property when a permit is requested. Once the Board approves a permit, the application goes to the city planning or zoning commission if more than a simple sale is involved.
The doctor who owned the Kenwood home wanted more than the Obamas could afford. As Barack has stated in numerous press interviews, buying the home would be a stretch. Barack contacted his patron Tony Rezko, despite knowing he was under investigation at the time, in order to see what could be done so the Obamas could afford their dream house. Sub-division was likely the agreed-on solution. In order to divide the lot, which the doctor purchased as one entity, he would have to:
There are several problems with this including that the properties were listed separately before they ever went on the market.
More than that, if one looks at the Recorder of Deeds records, one finds that the two lots were sold at the same time to the University of Chicago physician, but have two distinct property identifiers. I’m not listing those here because it makes finding the property a little too easy given the concerns over a Presidential candidate and his family’s safety. The lot in 2000 appears to have been sold for $414,00 and the house sold for $1.65 million which is as the reports in the Sun-Times and Trib have reported given that the owners wanted to sell the house for what they paid for it.
It also means that the selling price of $414,000 in 2000 indicates that $625,000 for the vacant lot 5 years later in that neighborhood is pretty reasonable.
The two lots have been sold together going back to at least 1985, though they were separate lots.
The person pushing this story is making it up wholecloth and needs to STFU.
February 8th, 2008 at
I have added your rebuttal to the MyDD diary link I had published at RezkoWatch. However, I find one tiny problem with the credibility of the seller only wanting to sell both properties for the SAME that he paid for them. The sale prices are not only “reasonable” but do not reflect what even the real estate agent would have recommended. Having a realtor in the family, he would say that selling at below market value was insanity on the realtor’s part. There is no allowance for real estate appreciation and 2005 was definitely NOT a down real estate market. Don’t you find that a bit odd? Who invests in real estate to NOT make a profit?
February 8th, 2008 at
To be completely pragmatic, it is a non issue, she makes America look good, Michelle tha ishe has a Coretta.
February 8th, 2008 at
===However, I find one tiny problem with the credibility of the seller only wanting to sell both properties for the SAME that he paid for them. The sale prices are not only “reasonable” but do not reflect what even the real estate agent would have recommended. Having a realtor in the family, he would say that selling at below market value was insanity on the realtor’s part. There is no allowance for real estate appreciation and 2005 was definitely NOT a down real estate market. Don’t you find that a bit odd? Who invests in real estate to NOT make a profit?
They did want to make a profit–but they were moving to the Baltimore area and had to sell. So they took the high bid on the House.
High end property is very spotty and, in fact, has to be thrown out when you do assessment ratio studies because the sales are automatically outliers.
From everything written about the sale, it appears the wanted to sell the two lots separately for exactly this reason. Together the property would have less of a market while the house could sell for around what they paid and then the lot is in a desirable area to build upon–thus an easier property to get rid of–and there were more bids for it.
February 8th, 2008 at
Did these people learn nothing from Fools for Scandal and The Hunting of the President?
One lesson from those books about Whitewater is that when the Big Bad New York Media comes in retreading the same path done by the local media, they do an inferior job.
You’d think Clinton fans would know this by now.
February 8th, 2008 at
BTW, the house was on the market for several months so it’s hard to say that the value was clear.
March 19th, 2008 at
[...] I replied why this was incorrect here: There are several problems with this including that the properties were listed separately before they ever went on the market. [...]