June 13, 2005
HOUSING BUBBLE BURSTS:
Cunningham defends deal with defense firm's ownerM (Marcus Stern, June 12, 2005, COPLEY NEWS SERVICE)
A defense contractor with ties to Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham took a $700,000 loss on the purchase of the congressman's Del Mar house while the congressman, a member of the influential defense appropriations subcommittee, was supporting the contractor's efforts to get tens of millions of dollars in contracts from the Pentagon.Mitchell Wade bought the San Diego Republican's house for $1,675,000 in November 2003 and put it back on the market almost immediately for roughly the same price. But the Del Mar house languished unsold and vacant for 261 days before selling for $975,000.
Isn't there a proviso in McCain-Feingold restricting deals like that to John Kerry? Posted by Orrin Judd at June 13, 2005 8:35 AM
I'm not ready to indict just yet. That was the market price for the house in Del Mar (and probably a good deal at that). Why it didn't sell later is anyone's guess, except that vacant, corporate owned houses are a red flag and, not unusually, sell at a distressed price.
Posted by: captmike(at)@bellatlantic.net at June 13, 2005 8:52 AMKerry? He has never owned his own house. He marries the owners. When Terreza thows him out next year, he will have to rent, because he doesn't have the downstroke to buy. He will rent a little place in Georgetown where he will frequent the bars and hit on lonley middle aged para-legals.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at June 13, 2005 11:15 AM