Following on to John's earlier post about how the initial reports from Pakistan keep changing, we have another. It was a large property and a large house, but the $1 million mark was a bit much.
Descriptions of Bin Laden's hideout have also been prone to exaggeration. After Sunday night's dramatic raid by US Navy Seals, a senior Obama administration official told reporters that the property, an "extraordinarily unique compound" in an "affluent suburb", was valued at around $1m.
But two property professionals in Abbottabad – a quiet, military-dominated town – said that much of that was incorrect. Based on the size of the plot and the house, which was built in 2005, and using recent property sales as a guide, they estimated that it would fetch no more than $250,000 on the current market.
"Twenty million rupees, maximum," said property dealer Muhammad Anwar, a 22-year veteran of the local market, at his Abbottabad office. "No swimming pool. This is not a posh area. We call it a middling area."
