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July 27, 2010 07:11 PM UTC

Romanoff Sells His Crib, Which is Miracle In Itself

  • 107 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Democrat Andrew Romanoff has sold his Washington Park house and used most of the proceeds to shore up his underfunded Senate bid against incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet. As Eli Stokols of Fox 31 reports:

Romanoff, who bought his home one block of east of Washington Park in the 1990s, sold it to a developer for $360,000. From that, he loaned $325,000 to his campaign.

Last quarter, Romanoff raised $620,000 in contributions, his campaign’s best showing to date. Bennet’s campaign raised $1.63 million during the same period.

Given that the U.S. is suffering through the worst housing market ever, maybe Romanoff should be touting his real estate skills as a candidate.  

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107 thoughts on “Romanoff Sells His Crib, Which is Miracle In Itself”

  2. It seems like a total suicide mission, but it’s going to play well with voters.  I think it totally depends on how much of an inside baseball primary it is.

    Plus I think the whole thing is hilarious.  Two completely wealthy guys trying to out-populist each other.

    1. I’ll admit some ignorance on the matter.  I’ve only got the DP article to reference that showed a vast income difference between Andrew and Bennet.

      1. the fact that AR lives (er, lived) in Washington Park. He has a point, I suppose – it’s not exactly the ‘hood. Although it’s not like wealthy populists are anything new, or that it’s inherently insincere for a rich person to hold such beliefs.

        OTOH, it’s pretty funny seeing once-sensible ‘pub politicians try to out-teabag each other, too. They look a lot more compromised to me.

        1. I mean, he bought the house at $190k and the DP article (again, I have no other point of reference) showed his income peaking at $54k (Bennet $6.5mil), which is hardly what I’d call rich.

              1. I’ve heard that AR has a trust fund that he taps into. Which begs the question, how can any legislator afford to live on their salaries?

        2. Certainly not be U.S. Senate candidate standards, although both more more wealthy than the average person.

          Both men have had privileged lives and secured elite educations, neither is a Horatio Alger story, but measured by net worth or lifetime income, Bennet is far, far more affluent.

          AR has eschewed more lucrative options for a life of public service to an exceptional extent, in which he has been distinguished.  MB has had a career that was much more lucrative, although he has certainly devoted himself to the public good as well.

      2. He walked away with the cash.  That didn’t happen on his $30K State House salary, plus the DU law degree he completed in 2008, plus all the traveling.  I can’t imagine those guest lecturer jobs pay all that well.  AR is living on something other than his income.  When the primary is over, he will get another house.

        1. He also appears to live very modestly and have not much of a social life outside of politics.  Maybe his parents helped him with the house.  It would have been a great investment if he’d sold it in 2006 instead of now!

          The above, mind you, is conjecture. I don’t think he got the money for the house in the first place in a shady way. Our folks helped us with the down on our first house and my mom’s parents helped my mom’s brother.  Nothing much to look at there, if that’s the case.  

          1. or failure to report income exists.

            however, knowing the Unmentionables bent for Bennet, they’ll have that story out tomorrow … because the people have a right to know if that guy claiming he doesn’t take Bennet-like corporate cash is also awash in corrupt casino like residential real estate deals.

          2. I was just pointing out that he lives beyond his salary.  It may be parents paying for the house, law school education, and world travel.  It may be a trust fund.  He doesn’t have to worry about the next pay check like most of us.

                1. I had to earn the down payment for my first house, a small bungalow in Southwest Denver.  After 19 years, I was able to sell that house and use what I cleared as downpayment for something in a nicer neighborhood where young Republicans move in after their parents make the downpayment.  It’s something I really notice.

                2. And a fair point–it undercuts AR’s claim that he is a Senator for the rest of us–but maybe only if you have a trust fund and don’t have to worry about paying the mortgage, insurance, food, tuition, etc.

  3. whether you agree with him or not, I think this action shows the determination the man has.  I support him because that is the same dedication he’s had to Colorado: the same dedication he’ll bring to the United States Senate.

  4. We live around the corner from Romanoff. He undersold his house to a well-known developer in a fire sale because he needed to raise money quickly.

    His property assessed value is $449k for a 5,000 sq ft lot (2009 valuation). According to Denvergov.org, he purchased it for $189.9k 11/1996.

    If any of the Real Estate people on this blog do a quick search on recent sales, you’ll note that similar lots are going for more money as East Washington Park defies market conditions as developers are tearing houses down again and building new homes.  As one developer remarked to us trying to buy our home to tear it down: “Wash Park will become the next North Cherry Creek, so you’re going to sell sooner or later.”

    The big story here is that he sold his house less than it was worth to raise quick cash. The developer got a steal and will make a lot of money on his property.  Developers are again buying in Wash Park now that the new home inventory built over the last couple of years has sold out.

    We support Romanoff and will miss him in the neighborhood. However, we’re sorry to see him sell his home at less than market value for the neighborhood to help support what we think is a uphill primary battle against Bennett.

    1. Mid $300K for a house a block away from Wash Park?! The fact that it sold isn’t surprising at all.

      Too bad he didn’t reach out to me instead of a developer.

    2. That’s a depressing thought. I thought it was too gentrified for that already (Cherry Creek North was not a great neighborhood 35 years ago) but then again, I’ve seen what they’ve done in Hilltop/Crestmore.

      Still, in this market it defies belief that developers are still doing this. There are tons of never-occupied McMansions all over town. Who can get the financing for one now?

    3. But, it certainly is true that this was not a sweat heart deal providing back door personal gain.

      Honestly, I’m inclined to say that the assessor’s value of $449K for that particular house (it’s a short walk from my house) is more than one could get in a reasonable time right now; I’ve guess that it was worth something in the low 400s. A $360K price is cheap, but not stunningly so.

      1. Perhaps you are oblivious as you stroll towards AR’s house and see East Washington Park’s recent developments to REALLY know what’s going on with the developers and real estate (that is unless you leave for work before sunrise and come home after dark).

        Within the last 45 days, there are 10 houses that were scrapped within 5 blocks from our houses (the 10th is being demolished today). Chalet, Forte, Larsen, Vision, et.al are moving quickly as the new homes built over the last couple of years are sold and there’s demand for people with money to move in (see last Sunday’s newspaper).

        A/R’s house is worth the assessed value of $449k, if not more, because it is a half-block from the park and is nicely kept up.

        So, yes, the story remains that A/R sold his house for below market value in a rush to get cash for his campaign and left money on the table.  

        Nonetheless, we still support AR but are sad to see him go and see the below market sale of his home.

  5. When he took office, Michael Bennet sold stock at a loss of $1.4 million to avoid conflicts of interest.  That’s almost more than the entire Romanoff campaign has even raised.

      1. Michael Bennet is a stand-up kind of guy who sold stock at the worst possible time (about Jan/Feb, 2009) to avoid conflict of interest appearances.  It was reported that he suffered a $1.4 million loss to do the right thing.

        That is more significant to me than Romanoff selling his home (that suspiciously may have been funded by his trust fund) to finance his campaign.  

          1. Before Romanoff is annointed for his “sacrifice”, it’s important to note that Senator Bennet made a far larger sacrifice doing the right thing.

  6. In the early 2000s you couldn’t find much, not even many little bitty 2 BR bungalows in Wash Park for under $750K and pretty much nothing under $500K. This is absolutely not the time to sell unless you absolutely, positively have to. Romanoff must be obsessed beyond rationality.  And meantime, Bennet has him beat by a long shot on number of individual donations as well as  the huge overall money and serious polling advantage which undermines Romanoff’s claim to being the real man of the people. When the smoke clears Romanoff is going to have to do some serious reevaluating.  

  7. For instance, how did he pay for this mortgage without a job for last 11 months?

    Or how did he pay for that mortgage when he was earning so little in the state legislature?

    It seems like he had to have some money coming in. Whole thing seems a bit questionable.

    Also, between the paper of record, this KDVR report and the (seemingly better researched) report from Face the State, there are a lot of different and conflicting stories here. Something doesn’t seem right.

    http://facethestate.com/by-the…

    1. Did Romanoff tell him this or something?

      But at the same time, he says, Romanoff is “going to move to Washington either way.”

      http://facethestate.com/by-the…

      One thing that has struck me about this whole campaign is that it’s always seemed to be a bit more about Romanoff than, say, Colorado. If this is him severing ties win or lose, that would make a lot of sense…

      1. It’s made him bear false witness and  disparage his own poliical style (conservaive Democrat).

        The announcement  does disract from the Merida potential biebery scandal.

    2. house was paid for.  Just speculation but his affluent family could have bought it for him and it would he have been a solid investment at the time.  If he really paid under 200K for it at the time it would have made a very nice profit had he sold in 2006. We were doing lots of work in Wash Park in the early to mid 2000s and it wasn’t uncommon for a client to have a very small bungalow there that cost $850K at the height of the bubble. You never saw anything under $500K and rarely that low.

      1. The Face the State article cited above says he netted approx $225l – and then added $100k of personal savings to loan ihis campaign $325k.

        $100k of personal savings is a nice size account for the kind of income  he reported.  I couldn’t have done it.

        But perhaps the buyer’s claim that AR is moving to DC either way explains the sale’s timing.

        If he sold his house just to go all in – it could be admirable.  I don’t have access to the information he has.

        If he was going to sell anyway, and selling now allows him to publicize it and talk about going all in, well, it’s a little less admirable and alittle more cheesy.

    3. AR has outside income.  I wish I did.

      There was no mortgage on the house or a very small one.  Houses as gifts can let you do that.

      There has never, ever been a whiff of scandal or financial impropriety about Andrew.  That tells me that chances are 99:1 there is nothing to hide, at least legally.

      AR being supported by family is no more scandalous than both Bush’s at times of their lives.

      Now, if some corporate “admirers” bought him the house, then something is, indeed, wrong.  

      1. Just because I support Bennet, I’m not going to look to make a scandal out of this nothing.  To me its just surprising that he’s so obsessed he’s willing to sell at such a lousy time for money to throw away on such a long shot. Not shady.  The opposite of shady.  More like desperate and not very sensible.  

      2. Sold for $360, netted $225=$135 mortgage.  If he bought in the 90s for $190 or thereabouts with a mortgage, and refinanced a time to two when the rates dropped, that sounds right.  And it sounds like he bought it himself; maybe his family helped with the down payment, but even if he put 20% down, that’s not a vast sum of money.

        Re corporate admirers, not likely since he bought the place 11 or 12 years ago.

        It doesn’t sound to me like he needed a big trust fund or rich family to buy this house.

        1. The house, DU law school education, world travel on a $30K government salary that ended in 2008 plus some pocket change for guest lecturing.  The man is amazing.  

    4. What’s wrong … with the house or him.

      Reasons to sell out like this include:

      In foreclosure

      Expired listing

      Bad tenants

      Estate sale

      Vacant house

      Behind on payments

      Owe liens

      Structural problems

      Need repairs

      Job transfer or relocation

      Divorced

      Making two house payments

      You’d have thought he could get $500k-600k at least by going with a realator for a week or two. Hell a realtor would start at $600, move it at $450, take $30k commission and AR would have walked away with $420. Yet he settles for $350??? Something smells.

      2. So I looked up recent sales of homes in east Wash Park that were similar in size to his (no idea of the condition of his home, so I couldn’t adjust for that).  The median net sale price was $402,000.  Those were all homes that were listed by a Realtor.  Figure $402,000 – $24,000 commission = $376,000, so he wasn’t that far off.

      3. Maybe you.  Sorry, couldn’t resist.

        Hey, it’s a FREE MARKET! To the extent of obligations like paying off a mortgage, he can do what he damn well pleases.  Isn’t that what your ilk is always demanding?

        He wanted cash now.  Sell cheap.  Now.

        Maybe he’s really, really confident that he won’t need the house come January.  Live with his folks or something.  Wow, the horror of it all.

        I say all this as a (hypothetical, rather marginally) Bennett supporter.  

  8. Anyone who follows this site knows I’m a supporter of Sen. Bennet.  Right?  

    OK, that said, the innuendo around AR selling his house to loan money to his campaign is starting to sink to the level that some of AR’s sock puppets here have engaged in from the beginning.  

    Absent some reasonable evidence that there was anything remotely improper regarding how he bought the house in the first place (which I do not believe exists), I think we should all refrain from baseless speculation.

    It might be a gamble, it might be a preparation for leaving Colorado regardless of the primary outcome, etc.  But really–speculating that there may be something fishy about selling his house to loan money to his campaign is over the top.

    1. It strikes me as a rather desperate gamble and proof of how virulent Potomac Fever can be.  But it’s ARs House and AR’s money, his own and his family’s, and he can use it as he pleases.

      I will admit in my more mathematically inclined moments I mused that he paid Merida $5,000 for her support, so maybe we can expect 65 newly minted Romanoff supporters posting on our blog and writing opeds for That Which Must Not be Named until Aug. 10.;-)

      1. AR gets free media on this … young upstart thinks DC is corrupt, wants to takeout the existing appoint Senator and former Hickenlooper aid … he’s betting his house [literally].

        I think this sells well to the average voter.

        1. I sure as hell wouldn’t sell my house and put my family’s security at risk to finance my personal ego trip.  Of course, AR doesn’t have a wife and kids to support, so he can afford to take this risk.  But in some ways, that only underscores the difference between him and family men like you and me.

              1. We’ll see how it goes.

                “Family man” is almost like code – for some it conjurs up images of the old “Father Knows Best” TV series.  But the code part is the implication that if you’re a man and you’re not married with kids, there’s something wrong with you.  

                Of course most of us know that it’s not that simple – family man Ted Haggard comes to mind.  I don’t know about you but I don’t view him in even a remotely favorable light.  How many examples of warped “family men” should I list?  Warren Jeffs is another example from today’s news.  

                And what about the “family men” who abuse their children – physically, emotionally and/or sexually?  There are reasons that there are thousands of children in foster care in Colorado.  Or the family men who have another woman – or women – on side.  They’re still family men.  Then there are the family men who commit other crimes – embezzling from their employers, for example.  Do you think the single mother trying to raise her children on one income because their “family man” walked out on them, thinks highly of the term?

                So, there are some of us who don’t see the term “family man” as a positive – we see it, instead, as code used to speak negatively of men who are not married with children.  A relative of mine just got married for the first time and is in his 40’s, with no children.  Does that mean there’s something wrong with him?  There’s not.

                1. It does tend to give one more flexibility in housing changes.

                  Certainly more independence.

                  But if it really has become un-pc code, I’ll drop it.

            2. But as Ralphie said, facts is facts.  As a father and a grandfather, I suspect Bennet, who has had to balance balance responsibilities with work, is probably a bit more attuned to my concerns than a single guy is.  If you’d spent 40 years working, raising a family, paying off the mortgage on your house, refinancing it to send your kids to graduate schools, all of which I’ve done, you’d understand why selling off a home to put the proceeds into a political campaign, as AR did, simply underscores the difference in our world views and our priorities.  

  9. …why is Romanoff here? Why is his pal Ken Gordon pushing him? Bennet is an incumbent Democrat with mostly a fine record and Obama endorses him. Bennet is showing he has much better ability to raise funds to defeat the Republican (either the dumb-*ss or the dumb-b*tch), even more so since this home fire-sale in the PRIMARY race. Romanoff is a good guy, but he is out of his league and now seems a little out of his mind.

    Andrew, don’t be asking me for help “retiring your campaign debt”.  

      3. it’s a play on words – since “Pass-the-Buck” labeled himself the dumbass – how about this: “Snortin’ Norton” (for when she parties with “Dubya”))

    2. I find myself asking that question too. It’s a real shame that we have a progressive Dem trying to decapitate a sitting Dem Senator at a time when the political climate is looking bleaker by the day for the Dem majorities. AR’s campaign is bigger than Colorado, it’s putting at risk so many progressive initiatives such as the climate change bill, etc. It only takes one Senator to complicate all hopes of getting anything done.  

          2. David, put that hoary hobby horse of yours to rest.

            You’re basing the distinction on two or three votes in a huge legislative slog. Ones Romanoff was able to throw bombs at from the outside (as he should, being the challenger). But you’re also conveniently ignoring Romanoff’s lengthy legislative record in Colorado, which paints a far less progressive picture than you’d like to see. The DLC does not elevate progressives to leadership positions — that’s pretty much the reason they exist is not to do that.

            1. He could be a Howard Dean who became a progressive while campaigning for president, and continued down that road after as party chairman. But for every true conversion like Dean, there’s probably 4 that are a temporary conversion of convenience. And we’ll only know if Romanoff is elected.

              As to Bennet’s votes, those were the key votes in the financial reform legislation. And they are our only window into what efforts Senator Bennet was making behind the scenes. We have to evaluate based on what we can see.

              I don’t think Bennet is bad, I just don’t think we’re going to see much improvement by returning him.

        2. Political labels seem to change their meaning every decade or so. The way I see it, progressives is a tag for Dems in general and liberal is a tag for hard left Dems. In any case, they are one in the same. They are both moderate Dems, that is until ARs emotional supporters came into play which has forced AR into a platform that will never get off the ground

    1. “Fifteen percent (15%) have a Very Favorable opinion of Bennet … But 35% view him Very Unfavorably.

      Romanoff earns Very Favorables of 20% and Very Unfavorables of 21%.”

      1. The polling seems to indicate that the candidates are pretty close in the eyes of the general public, with AR having a bit of lead, notwithstanding Colorado Pols suspicious exaggeration in claiming that outcome is a sure thing.

        There is more to politics than campaign finance reports.

  11. So no one is worried about the lease-back option he seemed to have negotiated? Or does everyone just think that is what “the rest of us do” when we sell our house?

      1. or right in the middle of the general?

        I hate moving.

        My dog hates moving.

        Everyone I know hates moving.

        Yet he’s now planning to do it right in the heart of the general? Just weeks before the ballots are in the mail.

        I don’t get it.

         

        1. How much would a bungalow like this rent for? $1500/mo? $2000? Even if we go as high as $2500 (which seems extravagant, even if it is one block from Washington Park), that’s just $5,000.

  12. with the fire sale of his house, why expect him to make smart decisions about money in the Senate?  Or maybe there is so much family money, it’s not really an issue for him.

    1. … he needed the cash quickly for last-minute ads, so he couldn’t be picky about price. I’m a Bennet supporter, but in no way does his need to sell his house quickly mean that he’s “bad” rather than “smart” as to “decisions about money.”

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