Banking on Appraisals, Obama Style

This adds up.

Rezko came in to buy the empty lot, which he sweetly never did anything with, giving Obama effectively the entire two-lot parcel for his own use. But even better -- Rezko "grossly overpaid" for his empty lot, leading to suspicions the owner charged Obama less for his property only because Rezko was willing to overpay for his by about $300,000. Allowing Obama to underpay by about the same $300,000

Recall that a bank officer was canned over the transaction. He noticed that the appraisal used by the Bank was far more than the property's worth and wrote it up. Bank officials fired his ass for his impertinence, and left the inflated appraisal in the file for review by the FDIC (or whoever.)

The real estate specialist, Kenneth J. Conner, said bank officials replaced an appraisal review he prepared on the property and FBI agents were investigating in late 2007 whether the Rezko-Obama deal was proper.

“Agents and I talked about payoff, bribe, kickback for a long time, though it took them only a short number of minutes of talking with me while looking at the appraisal to acknowledge what they already seemed to know: The Rezko lot was grossly overvalued,” Mr. Conner told The Washington Times Monday.

“Rezko paid the asking price on the same day Obama paid $300,000 less than the asking price to the same seller for his adjacent mansion,” he said. “This begs the question of payoff, bribe, kickback."

Nah. Couldn't possibly be a payoff, bribe, or kickback. Not to the Messiah!

HT: Ace