Posted on 05/04/2011 2:53:41 PM PDT by Qbert
Osama Bin Laden’s house, described by the US government as a $1 million mansion, has been priced by property experts in Pakistan at no more $250,000, The Guardian reports.
Two property professionals in Abbottabad, the town where Bin Laden was killed last Sunday, said that much of the US government’s description was exaggerated.
The house was built in 2005 and based on the size of the plot and recent property sales, they estimated that it would fetch no more than the equivalent of $250,000 in the current market. After Sunday’s raid by US Navy SEALs which led to the killing of the Al-Qaeda leader, a senior Obama administration official had described the property as an “extraordinarily unique compound” in an “affluent suburb” and valued it at $1 million.
It later proved that Abbottabad is a quiet, military-dominated town, according to the property experts.
“This is not a posh area. We call it a middling area,” property dealer Muhammad Anwar, a 22-year-old veteran of the local market, told The Guardian.
But when reporters reached Abbottabad to see Bin Laden’s hideout, a number of oddities were noticed.
The compound’s thick, 15-feet-high walls were topped with three tiers of barbed wire, which set the compound apart from the rest of the neighborhood.
The courtyard surrounding the house was considerably large. Reports indicate that only a handful of people lived inside the compound and so it is unclear what the large space was needed for.
Meanwhile, census takers had seemingly not visited Bin Laden’s property. Painted on the entrance gate to most homes in the neighborhood was a note in Urdu saying that census enumerators had visited over the past two months. But Bin Laden’s house had no note.
The households that participate in the census have to give details about everyone who lives there.
The area Bin Laden lived in was built after the devastating earthquake that hit Pakistan in 2005 and killed more than 73,000 people.
I'm sure we all believe a slimy realtor talking to the slimier Guardian.
if the US Governement were the ones to build it, it would definitely cost at least a Million to build a concrete hut.
For sale: Slightly used private compound. 15-foot walls, helicopter LZ, pools of blood. Previous owner moving to warmer climate...
Now says: "Perfect fixer upper home for the handyman. Dog friendly back yard."
What’s with the “Million dollar compound”???
The place looks like a crack house
The house's cost was not the expensive part of the deal. Having a criminal at the top of the FBI's Most Wanted List, the target of every undercover operative, lowlife criminal, and/or anyone else wanting the reward as the buyer was the most important aspect of the purchase.
The real question is: what price did the 0bama admin. pay the Paks to look the other way while we took out Osama? Billions more in bribes for the military kleptocrats in Pakistan? Withdrawal from Afghanistan?
That it does, but who really cares about the value. He’s dead, doesn’t matter if he was in a hut, a cave, or brothel.
If so I suspect the value of the property is somewhat less than it was this time last week.
I guess the real estate bubble also bursted in Pakistan.
Gul Muhammad, AKA Gul Madah, AKA Mithu Khan, was the contractor that started building the house in 2003 and added on to it continuously for about 2 years until UBL moved in in 2005. Arshad Khan bought the 23 parcels that now make up the property, he was killed in the raid.
Naw, trust the “Obama administration official”!
And something tells me the mortgage payment won’t be met this month.
Can’t get any correct facts out of the administration.
I don't buy that phony "Seal Team 6" story at all. This looks much more like a Fannie Mae operation evicting OBL from an underwater mortgage...
the ever evolving story
Well, now it’s a tourist attraction, so I would say it’s probably worth about $5 million.
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