Being bad at math does not excuse your skewed sense of newsworthiness

by folkbum

Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois.

The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. [. . .] "It's certainly safe to say that this borrower did better than average," said Keith Gumbinger, an HSH vice president.

Obama did better than average, and so did about 50% of the rest of the people who got mortgages in Chicago in June, 2005.

I wonder if the Washington Post will do a story on all those other borrowers. Maybe they'd like to do a story on me and the 5% fixed rate I got in 2003, which was below average in Milwaukee at the time. My email address is to the right, for any interested reporters.

UPDATED to add, Nate at 538 points out that having a moderately decent credit score--as the Obamas likely do--could be enough to account for the 0.3% rate discount the Obamas received.