I ran into Bret Garwood today at the Coop. Bret is now the interim head of business and neighborhood development, taking over for Carlos Carballada. Bret told me that Carballada really doesn’t live in that house and indeed the furniture is covered up. “His house is mothballed?” I asked, confused. “Yes,” he replied and he seemed a bit miffed that I would impugn Carballada’s integrity. He said people have second homes and that is Carlos second home.
So, let the record reflect that I am walking back my statement that Mr. Carballada doesn’t seem to REALLY live in the city.
Well I don’t know about you but that still makes me wonder what is going on. It’s not your typical “second home”. It isn’t in the woods, on a mountain or on the water or wherever people who can afford more than one home typically put their second home. He’s been paying taxes on that property for 5 years? Why? Is it an investment thing? It looks like he bought the house for $230,000 and now it’s assessed for more than double that. Is he unable to sell it? I went to the County website to see how much he’s been paying in taxes the past 5 years but the link has been severed. Apparently the county must have switched up it’s website last week. That’s weird. (SEE UPDATE BELOW)
So, somebody explain to me how that makes sense. Why would somebody hold onto a $630,00 property and pay taxes on it for 5 years and never live in it?
The only explanation I can come up with is that the Carballada’s apartment in the City is a temporary residence and that Mr. and Mrs. Carballada plan on retiring to Brighton after he is done providing his services to the City (I believe Mr. Carballada is in his 70′s).
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UPDATE
The county tax records website links are working again. If I’m reading it right, Mr. Carballada paid about $25,000 last year in taxes ($9,972.48 town/county and $14,930.73 school) and presumably paid that amount every year for the past 4 or 5 years.
We’re looking at over $100,000 paid in taxes on a “second home” that is just being mothballed. Why? Doesn’t that rule out the theory that he was waiting for the housing market to rebound?
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