>> Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler's multi-million dollar home rapidly
depreciated in value, resulting in a much lower property tax bill. Now,no one can explain why,
especially at a time when all of her neighbors property values went up.
She and her husband had pumped money into remodeling this extravagant mansion.
And usually when you do that, the property value goes up. But I'll give you the details and you
decide for yourselves if something shady is going on. Loeffler and her husband Jeffrey,
Sprecher, bought a 15,000 square-foot Atlanta mansion known as Descante for $10.5 million
in 2009. The value of the estate as appraised by Fulton County government officials for the
purpose of calculating annual profit Property Tax dues remain the same for the next seven years.
But then something weird happened in 2016. The appraised value suddenly plunged to 4.1 5 million,
a whopping 60% decline. So, how does that translate to lower property tax?
Well, property taxes of course are calculated based on the value of the home
and if the value of the home goes up your property tax bill goes up.
And if it goes down, of course, your property tax bill goes down. Now originally, they were paying,
my God, $200,000 annually to the city and county governments in property taxes. Then in 2016,
after their home's value dropped, they paid
$90,000, since then the appraised value of their home has risen to roughly five million,
but they're still paying about $80,000 less a year than they did when they first bought their home.
None of this makes sense, none of it. And so the daily beast is very careful to state that
there's no evidence of wrongdoing, but even so no one can answer why there was this sudden
depreciation in the home's value especially when property values had have been going
up,there's no reason to believe that the value actually depreciated.
>> Did they spill something that smelled really bad?
Are they breeding exotic black fungus or something that got into the walls
trying to think of some explanation, underground dog fights or bull fights.
Look, I'm more about real estate than me. It sounds like ,a cool little con to pay less money.
But there were a couple of other things I thought about one that now once it was
depreciated the fact that it was $4 million. I am immediately thought, Man in LA you're not getting
15,000 square feet for those $4 million. That's like a small house basically $4 million.
Yeah. And then also >> 15,000 square feet. No,
I need to know. Look, I love I love homes. I love architecture like
and it's not because I'm like,I want to be rich and I want to live in a giant house.
I'm genuinely fascinated by architecture and real estate and all of that, right?
But why do you need a fifteen thousand square foot home?
How many kids do they have? Do they have a billion pins now? Like, why do you need
that? I need all of that I don't understand. >> Is that actually I'm cutting into that pool.
>> Like the outdoor area, the outdoor areas fine, I'll take?
>> Like every time you get out of your car, it's like a five minute walk to get into your house.
It's gonna be so annoying. This is why you got like,
come on get a car elevator your poor bastard. Anyway, no the better question.
So the good question is why do you need a fifteen thousand square foot home?
The better question is, why do you need a fifteen thousand square foot home when I
guarantee they own at least five other homes? Like I doubt that's their only home but beside
that why do you need to save $100,000 in property taxes when you have $800 million to your name?
That's so petty. God the rich are
like they are really like everybody's like scanning the stars for alien life. Just look at
the nice neighborhoods. They are alien. They think in ways that don't make sense to actual humans.
But the pettiness. >> I know that this
is a little bit of a tangent, but we have a two hour show and I'm gonna indulge no.
You mentioned rich neighborhoods or even not fabulously rich neighborhoods just like well,
too. Do neighborhoods. I've noticed this trend and maybe it's not the case across the country,
but it annoys me a lot. Because I like to go running and I like to go running in nicer
neighborhoods, of course, who wouldn't want to go to a nicer neighborhood to go for a run?
They don't like to have sidewalks. So they don't have sidewalks and then I looked into that,
and it's because they don't want the riffraff.
Don't want people like us. >> It's just that,
>> I look, I get it. I don't want people like me around where I live, but they're doing okay.
They're doing okay. They're behind gates. What do they care if there's
sidewalks outside of their castle? It's not within the moat. What's the difference?
>> Well, let me give you more details on the types of renovations they did because again,
let me reiterate typically when you do renovations that increases the value of your property right?
That's that's usually how people. Will justify doing renovations that they can't even afford in
a lot of cases. In this case, as you mentioned, Loeffler and her husband are worth $800 million,
so they can't afford it. In 2015 they spent nearly $90,000 to renovate the kitchen,
$150,000 to construct a new greenhouse
and $125,000 on various outdoor improvements records filed with the city show well at least
they're getting the appropriate permits for these updates on their homes or on their home.
Atlanta was also. Undergoing a real estate boom at the time that their property was randomly
depreciated by millions of dollars. So again, this doesn't make any sense. And, I do want to give
you a description of the home even though you've seen some imagery the seven bedroom home in tuxedo
park, an exclusive subsection of the Tony Buckhead neighborhood features lush spacious grounds.
A garage portico imported from Spain. Several renaissance era European frescoes and no fewer
than nine antique Fireplaces. But why? That's why. >> There's like seven words in there. I need to
look up I just looked up portico they had to have that flown from one continent to another.
There weren't any good porticos in America has. >> It has an airstrip. Isn't it? Because of
course. >> Well
I mean. >> What are they
gonna do? They're gonna fly commercial? Come on. >> Yeah no, honestly, but I don't want a long
air strip. I don't want the riff raff flying into my neighborhood.
>> God, when you talked about the renovations.
And just we don't eat enough rich people. We need to every once in a
while just eat a few rich people. Because, >> Are you kidding me? They're eating us,
we haven't eaten a single rich person. They're eating us all day, it's just.
And look, I don't begrudge people for being successful.
>> I do. >> I don't think anyone needs to
have that amount of wealth. But this isn't like we're We're angry just because people are rich.
They're not paying their taxes, this should be investigated, right? Maybe there was a mistake.
Maybe the appraisers made a mistake, right? Okay, let's look into this. Let's investigate it because
clearly there's not paying the taxes that they should be paying on this property. So let's
just let's just have them pay the appropriate taxes. And also let's do a real investigation
into the accusations of insider trading by Kelly Leffler because I'm sorry an ethics
committee in the senate Is not an appropriate investigation into possible insider trading.
We're talking about a group of her peers who possibly also engage in insider trading, clearing
her of any wrongdoing. Yeah, not buying it. Sorry. >> Yeah I mean there's a possibility they paid
off the appraiser. Or there is a possibility if you try to talk to the local government.
And get them to look into it. They probably donated to all of those politicians.
And all of that added up is still going to be cheaper for them.
Than just paying their taxes. And being a part of this society. That is
obviously given them so much. >> Portico, that's it.
>> Spanish portico. >> Spanish portico.
>> American porticos, I barely want a fifteen thousand square
foot house if it's gonna be adorned thusly. >> I also have an antique fireplace. It's only
antique because it's never been renovated since this place was built in the 1970s.
And you literally can't find parts for it and so
it's really hard to repair it what I want to repair it anyway.
But antique, not a big deal.