Dodd’s Irish Country Cottage

Tell me again about how these guys inside the beltway are performing public service? Chris Dodd, (D-Countrywide) watches the housing market implode while he gets favored mortgage treatment here … and great land deals overseas partnering with felons? Perfect. Kevin Rennie continuuuuuues.

Ireland does not easily give up its secrets. That may have been one attraction it held for Sen. Christopher Dodd in 1994 when he became an owner of a refuge on nearly 10 acres on the Irish west coast. The murky tale includes a felonious inside trader, a Kansas City businessman, a presidential pardon and what appears to be a financial bonanza to Dodd during the Irish property boom.

But wait … according to Dodd’s financial disclosures … his Irish cottage never participated in the Irish property boom … curious.

Between 1994 and 2004, according to the Central Bank of Ireland, prices of existing homes (as opposed to new ones) nearly quadrupled. But not according to a 2002 bank appraisal that Dodd used in the purchase of Kessinger’s interest.

That year, a year after Dodd obtained a pardon for Downe, Dodd purchased Kessinger’s two-thirds interest in the Irish hideaway for only $127,000, according to Dodd. Irish property records obtained for this story show it as $122,351. That was slightly more than its value eight eventful years before, but much less than what might have been expected given the explosion of Irish real estate prices.

At the same time, Dodd financed the purchase of Kessinger’s share with a 20-year variable rate mortgage from an Irish bank for approximately $159,000 at 3.85 percent.

Make sure you read the whole thing twice. But here’s what I wonder … are these the kind of deals you and I could get … or do you have to be a Senator? Public service indeed.