Some Pretty Simple Points about the Obama House
ArchPundit
It’s a little hard to figure how the Tribune is letting Byrne get away with simply false assertions in his last column, but it’s also hard to figure the Kass column didn’t get toned down
The fact is the Obamas and the Rezkos bought property in a fashionable South Side neighborhood next to each other on the same day, from the same lot, and the Obamas came out the winners.
Obama bought his home at a $300,000 discount. Rezko bought the adjoining lot from the same sellers at full price. One got a juicy bargain. The other overpaid. Legend has it that Rezko never paid full price for anything in his life, so he starts with Obama?
I don’t dispute that Rezko was trying to get in with Obama, that’s his style, but there’s a simple point the original story made:
In the past, the two lots had been sold as a single estate. But in 2005, the owners listed the two parcels for sale separately.
The plots were for sale separately from the beginning before Obama would have even known of the property.
Later, it occurs to the senator that he’d like a slice of Rezko’s acreage to enlarge his estate. Obama’s appraiser told him the fair market value of that slice was $40,500.
Since that’s one-sixth of the Rezko side, it means Rezko paid $625,000 for property that was actually worth $243,000. That would make Rezko a complete fool. But he’s no fool.
Obama then offers to pay more than $100,000 for a slice of land that wasn’t worth that much, because he wanted to be fair to Rezko.
Hmm.
Hmmm…John Kass, unlike Zorn just a few days ago, didn’t call anyone to discuss how real estate assessments are done. Zorn did a good job describing the confusing world of assessments by, ta-da, asking someone who knows. A strip of land like was sold to Obama isn’t worth just one-sixth of the value of the land because it cannot be used for anything by itself–and so appraisers use formulas to figure out what the value of that land is. Obama paid nearly 2 1/2 times that value to Rezko. The sum of the parts of a property don’t simply add up to the value of the property. Anyone who has ever dealt with an easement or similar situation to Obama would know this and any property assessor could give you an answer as to whether the initial assessment was reasonable. Kass didn’t do that. Instead he just tried to “raise questions.”
That’s the other thing, the fence. Obama says his engineer and architect planned it, and then Rezko put it up for him.
And what if Rezko had put up a fence that didn’t meet Landmarks standard–what would Kass be saying? I have an idea and so did Obama. In this case Obama worked to ensure the fence would fit Landmarks requirements–a situation which also affects the value of his property whether it resides on his property or not. Who got the benefit of that–Rezko.
Rezko already had to fence in the yard–that’s a city requirement to combat illegal dumping.
I don’t have any question that Rezko was trying to do favors for Obama, the thing is Obama did everything to make sure no favors were done. He could have asked him not to buy the property and probably wishes he did.
All that said, Obama responded to a property for sale, bought it and had someone else buy the adjoining property probably to get a good in with Obama. And Obama has done everything above board including paying more than the estimated value of the land he bought.
