Mitchell Wade, the perfect home buyer

It appears that Mr. Wade has come up with a highly creative way to improve and expand his business. His company is in the defense industry, but has discovered the earning potential of real estate investment.

You just have to be willing to take a risk on a property, even if it means overpaying a little.

Of course if can be really helpful if the home seller is Rep. Cunningham, and he is a member of the defense appropriations subcommittee. Just one little home purchase, and all of the sudden all those contracts that you were not getting, start to come your way.

Mitchell Wade bought the San Diego Republican's house for $1,675,000 in November 2003 and put it back on the market almost immediately for roughly the same price. But the Del Mar house languished unsold and vacant for 261 days before selling for $975,000.

Meanwhile, Cunningham used the proceeds of the $1,675,000 sale to buy a $2.55 million house in Rancho Santa Fe. And Wade, who had been suffering through a flat period in winning Pentagon contracts, was on a tear – reeling in tens of millions of dollars in defense and intelligence-related contracts.

In an interview Wednesday, Cunningham conceded that the circumstances surrounding the transaction could raise "fair" questions, but he insisted that the real estate deal was legitimate and independent of his efforts to help Wade win contracts.

I wonder if Mr Wade would be interested in a 3 bedroom home in Columbia S.C.. It is a great family home, and I suspect that it could be his for just over a million.