In all the Rezko tripe, I've seen it tossed around repeatedly that Obama got a sweetheart deal on his house by buying it for $300,000 less than the asking price. There is a simple response to that: Obama was the high bidder. As TPMuckraker put it:
In January of 2005, the Obamas made three successive bids on the home, which had been listed at $1.95 million. After bids of $1.3 and then $1.5 million, the Obamas, through an agent, finally offered $1.65 million, a bid which the seller ultimately accepted. Obama has said that the house was on the market for a number of months and was overpriced. The seller, a doctor at the University of Chicago named Fredric Wondisford who has refused to speak to the media, has stated in an email released by the Obama campaign to Bloomberg that Obama's bid was the highest bid on the home.
[Cross-posted at Nitpicker]
Now, we know how Republicans negotiate. They accept the first price offered to them as long as their buddies are on the receiving end of the transaction and the money isn't theirs, but out here in the real world, no one buys a house at the asking price.
What's fascinating is that the issue of Obama's house is actually a win for him if he would run with it.
The fact that he was the high bidder on his house proves that it was the asking price that was high and he received no favors. The fact that Obama negotiated for a better price shows that--even though his income last year puts him near the top one percent of earners in the nation--he actually understands what it means to balance a household budget. He doesn't have a sugar mommy to buy him houses and give him 5 c-notes to go out and buy himself some pretty little shoes. That's why Obama's tax plan (no matter how much McCainiacs want to lie about it) would give the average American taxpaying family a tax cut that would equate to about $1000 a year. McCain, on the other hand, would give the average family, oh, around $100. The rich, however, would rake it in.
Once again, McCain has chosen to side with the poor little billionaires like his sugar mommy--the man actually said that sometimes billionaires are poor--but Obama is actually working against his own self-interest to give more money back to the average American taxpayer.
So let McCain try to use Obama's house against him. The response to that is simple: Obama was the high bidder. Case closed.
And, frankly, if Americans vote with their wallets this year, Obama's the high bidder there, too.