Why did Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s Atlanta mansion lose half its value?

Value of the property dropped from $10.5M to just $4.15M, and no one is sure why

GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler and her Atlanta Mansion. (Getty, Beacham & Co.)
GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler and her Atlanta Mansion. (Getty, Beacham & Co.)

 

What happened in 2016 that caused the assessed value of Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s Atlanta mansion to drop by more than half?

The short answer: No one really knows. It may have been a mistake. What is known is that it resulted in a major reduction in her taxes, according to the Daily Beast.

Loeffler, who was appointed to her Senate seat at the end of 2019, and her husband, New York Stock Exchange chairman Jeffrey Sprecher, bought the 15,000-square-foot mansion known as “Descante” in 2009 for $10.5 million. Fulton County appraisers pegged its value at that figure for the next few years.

Then, in 2016, the appraised value fell to $4.15 million, cutting the couple’s tax bill from $200,000 annually to just $90,000.

A Fulton County spokesperson said the appraiser and other people responsible for such changes no longer work for the county.

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There are no records of Loeffler or Sprecher appealing any appraisals during that period and there’s no indication they did anything improper to lower their assessment in a non-public manner, according to the Daily Beast.

But if anything, it appears that the value of the property should have increased. Loeffler and Sprecher spent around $365,000 renovating and improving the property in 2015, the year before the sudden change in assessed value.

Their eight closest neighbors saw their assessments increase while Loeffler and Sprecher’s decreased. One tax professional familiar with the Fulton County system called the Board of Assessors “a train wreck” and said the change could be a mistake.

Overall, prices across the Atlanta metro area increased 81 percent between 2012 and 2020. Earlier this year, Tyler Perry sold a mansion to Steve Harvey for $15 million.

[Daily Beast] — Dennis Lynch