Obama’s Home Loan
The Washington Post’s story this morning on Obama’s home load leaves a lot to be desired. There’s quite a bit of innuendo and not a lot of real reporting. There’s not a scintilla of evidence that the Obamas were treated any differently than similarly-situated borrowers would have been.
Anyone who’s ever gotten a mortgage can tell you that the higher one’s FICO score is, the lower the rate will be on the loan. It’s simple really – if a borrower poses a small amount of risk, the bank will charge less. The inverse is also true. An excellent FICO score can save a borrower up to one half (or more) of one percent on the interest rate.
We don’t know what the Obamas FICO score was at the time of the loan. We know from news reports (quoted in a piece on Huffington Post) that the Obamas had (at the time they bought their house) recently begun making a lot more money, that they had recently sold their condo (and made a nice profit), that they had very little credit card debt, had excellent jobs, and had substantial savings. It seems to me (although I’m no loan officer) than the Obamas had an excellent chance of paying back their loan, thus posing a small risk.
There’s no sweetheart loan deal here. The Obamas received a competitive loan, and got a lower rate, commensurate with the credit risk they posed. That’s the same kind of thing that happened with my partner and me when we bought our house. If you have good credit, borrowing will cost less.
So the Washington Post and the rest of the media need to paint an accurate picture of what they report. In fact, there is no story here at all. I’m not going to be as harsh as Jason Linkins was in his piece on Huffington Post (linked above), but I agree with him. The Post should have done much better here.
The distractions and unnecessary noise about foolishness is senseless. What a waste of time and energy by the media. Obama seems to be a very fiscally responsible person — what is their point? Like you said pure ‘innuendo’.
America deserves better reporting from our media.
Deanna, they’re trying to find anything at all to discredit this man. so little sticks to him they resort to creating stories that make no sense. every day will be something else, if it’s not him, it will be michelle who comes under fire. i just hope the public is discerning enough to figure out the real deal.
heather
I hope they are too, Heather. I don’t have a lot of hope on that score, though. It’s obvious to me that most people don’t read and don’t care to learn facts before forming opinions. Or why else would people have such strong opinions based on lies?
It sometimes seems to me that Americans are becoming more insular, and less willing to have an open mind on something. Or maybe I’m getting older and it’s bothering me more. :)