| Monthly Payment on Candidate’s Home Could Top $50k
Presidential contender John Kerry finances $6.4 million loan January 4, 2004
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| Think your house payment is big?A Democratic presidential candidate has to make a payment that could be as high as $52,293 a month.
Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry, trailing in polls and fundraising to party front-runner Howard Dean, has taken a $6.4 million mortgage against his $10 million Boston town home. “Senator Kerry has finalized plans to loan his presidential campaign over $6 million,” Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill said. “The personal loan was secured through a mortgage on his share of the family’s home in Boston. “John Kerry’s personal commitment to the race is unquestioned,” Cahill said. Kerry, a U.S. Senator, owns the home in Boston’s posh Beacon Hill — the city’s most affluent neighborhood — with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. In late December he lent his campaign $850,000 in borrowed funds just prior to closing on the mortgage, according to his campaign. Kerry’s campaign did not release specific terms of the mortgage. But by using a payment calculator on the Mortgage Bankers Association Web site, one can get an idea of the type of payments Kerry faces. Payments on a 30-year loan of $6.4 million at 5.73% interest — the rate posted Jan. 31 on the MBA site — would be $37,267 a month. For a 15-year loan at 5.04%, the payments jump to $50,961. Terry Rasche, a real estate broker in the Cincinnati area, said it is likely that someone in Kerry’s position would take a 30-year jumbo loan, which stand at 5.5%. Payments on that would be $36,338. On a 15-year jumbo at 5.5%, the monthly payment would be $52,293, Rasche said. If Kerry would take an interest only LIBOR loan, the payment would be $11,548 for the first three years. Ironically, Kerry’s wife is worth an estimated $500 million. Her first husband, John Heinz, was an heir to the ketchup and food company fortune. Also a U.S. Senator, Heinz died in a 1991 helicopter crash. Under federal campaign finance laws, she cannot use the money she controls for her husband’s campaign. He can, however, use half of anything they jointly own or hold, such as the Boston town home. On his own, Kerry is not a wealthy man. In a financial disclosure form all members of Congress are required to file, Kerry earlier this year listed holdings his own name of up to $2.4 million. Good money but hardly a fortune. According to tax returns released by his campaign, Kerry’s 2002 salary was $144,091, the Associated Press reported. Kerry may not be done tapping his own assets for quick campaign cash. “Senator Kerry has fulfilled his promise to invest in his own campaign,” campaign spokesman Michael Meehan said in a statement. “(He) will keep all his options open under the law on further funding of the campaign.” Kerry raised about $20 million through September, but has raised only about $2 million over the past three months, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings. By contrast Dean, the former governor of Vermont who leads Kerry in all major polls, has raised more than $40 million, including $14 million in the fourth quarter, according to his FEC reports. |
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Patrick Crowley is a political reporter and columnist and former business writer for The Cincinnati Enquirer. Email Patrick at: pcrowley@enquirer.com |
