Former Treasury Secretary Paulson loses $1 million selling D.C. home

Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who spent his final years in George W. Bush's administration trying to stave off the housing crisis gripping the nation, has lost over $1 million selling his own Washington, D.C., home.

Paulson sold his three-bedroom home in the nation's capital for roughly $1 million less than he paid for it, and nearly a third less than his original asking price, according to Reuters.

Paulson in 2006 paid $4.3 million for the home, near the National Cathedral and the official home of the vice president in northwest Washington. He listed it for $4.6 million when putting it up for sale in April, and later lowered it to $4.15 million. 

But it did not sell until Dec. 21, when it was bought for $3.25 million, good for a 24.4 percent drop in value.

The former head of Goldman Sachs is expected to weather the loss fairly well. His net worth was estimated to be as much as $700 million in 2008.

And Paulson has seen a nice return on a major professional investment. The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which Paulson originally conceived, was once estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to cost the government at least $350 billion. Its most recent estimate puts the cost as low as $25 billion.