Originally caught this on Newsmax, so I’m glad to see it being reported elsewhere. It would appear that our dear Mr. Obama received a special rate on his $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois. He got it well-below market rates and without paying the usual extaneous fees, which reportedly saved him about $300 per month on his mortgage payments.

The couple wanted to step up from their $415,000 condo. They chose a house with six bedrooms, four fireplaces, a four-car garage and 5 1/2 baths, including a double steam shower and a marble powder room. It had a wine cellar, a music room, a library, a solarium, beveled glass doors and a granite-floored kitchen.

The Obamas had no prior relationship with Northern Trust when they applied for the loan. They received an oral commitment on Feb. 4, 2005, and locked in the rate of 5.625 percent, the campaign said. On that date, HSH data show, the average rate in Chicago for a 30-year fixed-rate jumbo loan with no points was about 5.94 percent.

Jumbo loans are for amounts up to $650,000, but the Obamas’ $1.32 million loan was so large that few comparables are available. Mortgage specialists say that many high-end buyers pay cash.

Now, Team Obama responded to the Washington Post report by claiming that everything was innocent and that the low rate was simply a benefit of competition.

On The Washington Post story “Obama Got Discount Home Loan,” the campaign, through spokesman Ben LaBolt, tells The Bourbon Room that Barack Obama received a loan that “anyone with the Obamas’ financial profile could have gotten the same rate on that mortgage.”

LaBolt says the Obama family was flush with cash at the time they were loan shopping and that the bank in question, Northern Trust, sought their business by offering a lower mortgage rate and to respond to a competitive mortgage rate offered by another lender. LaBolt would not identify the lender “at this time.”

“There was a competitive offer from another bank and the Obamas had a substantial amount of cash to deposit in the bank,” LaBolt said. “Northern Trust made the loan for commercial reasons.”

To which Ed Morrissey responds:

Let’s assume this is true.  Doesn’t the basic lending rate also account for competition?  Northern Trust competes for every loan it gets; that’s the beauty of competition, which someone should explain to Maxine Waters and Maurice Hinchey.   More to the point, though, why were lenders lining up to give money at discount rates to the Obamas?  And who was this mysterious second lender that cut $300 a month from Northern Trust’s income stream?

Hopefully this won’t be the last we hear about Obama’s sweetheart deal.