The Dukester's former neighbors weigh in with their two cents on the 2003 transaction, and share their warm memories of the Congressman:

Neighbors got their first inkling that something was going on at Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's Del Mar-area home when they saw him packing.

Next door neighbor Kent Greene asked: "Are you selling your house?"

"Already sold," Cunningham answered.

When neighbors later learned the $1,675,000 price, they were even more astonished.

"There was something fishy with the whole thing," said Mark Konopacke, who had bought his home across the street six months before for $700,000 less [ed.-see here].

(snip)

Some have dubbed the controversy "Mansiongate," but the house's original owner, Barbara Casino-Mizer, laughs when she sees the house in the papers. She and her husband, Corky Mizer, bought the ocean-view home from the builder in April 1987 for $385,000.

Casino-Mizer loved the big kitchen, the mosaic-tiled bathtub and the mauve carpet that was all the rage in the late '80s. However, when the couple found another home with acreage nine months later, they put the Mercado home on the market. Cunningham, who had been teaching at the Navy's Top Gun flight school, bought it for $435,000.

(snip)

The decorative bars Cunningham put over the windows gave the stylish home an ominous prison-like look, some neighbors said. They called it an eyesore. The neighborhood, though, was desirable. Many homes have ocean views, and each has its own style. Values shot up.

Mark and Victoria Konopacke purchased their 2,806-square-foot home across the street in May 2003 for $905,000. In November 2003, Cunningham – a member of the House's defense appropriations subcommittee – sold his house to Wade.

Neighbors say they never saw Wade. Some heard the house had been purchased by a government employee with tax dollars. Others heard a friend bought it. The house went on the market again almost immediately for $1,680,000.

"When I saw the price, I said, 'Thank you for raising my property values,' " Kipnis said.

Many neighbors peeked in during the open house.

"We all knew it wasn't market value," said Victoria Konopacke. "It was a dump. The place needed to be gutted."

Her husband, Mark, added: "I'm not surprised at all people are asking questions."

(snip)

Next door to the congressman's old place, Kent Greene has a for-sale sign posted in front of his house. He's asking $1,650,000.

Greene said that while the price may have been "ridiculous" for Cunningham's house in 2003, his home is highly upgraded and the market has moved up.

"It's a good neighborhood," he said, "an improved house, and, let me put it this way, it's better without him here."

The article actually has some good news for the saleslady who provided the comps now in dispute: the house across the street that sold for $900k a few months earlier was about 3/4 the size of the Cunningham condo, so an argument could be made that a significantly higher price would have been justifiable. Still, the lack of any sort of independent investigation by the purchaser just gives this whole deal a bad odor, since it would have revealed why this was not a $1.7 million home in the 2003 market.