Marco Rubio’s real estate dealings often a drag on his finances
During Marco Rubio‘s first year in the Florida Legislature in 2000, the 29-year-old lawmaker filled out the required forms detailing his personal finances. On the line listing his net worth, Rubio wrote: “0.” Since then, he has risen to lead the state House as speaker, won election to the U.S. Senate and earned at least $4.5 million at a series of six-figure jobs and by writing a best-selling memoir. Yet his net worth has improved only modestly. Like many Americans in the days since the recession, Rubio and his family — he has four children — have struggled in the housing market. Factor in questionable moves with money and a hefty load of student loans, and it’s clear that the Republican presidential candidate’s real estate dealings often have been a drag on his finances despite an income most would relish. “He’s like any normal American with four kids that has a mortgage,” said Bernie Navarro, a past president of the Miami-based Latin Builders Association, who has advised Rubio on his real estate transactions. “He goes through what any normal family goes through, living with a salary, and he has to make adjustments.” Rubio made two in the past few weeks: He sold a home in Tallahassee, Fla., that he owned with a former colleague. That freed Rubio from a monthly payment on an interest-only loan and the cost of upkeep. But he lost money on the deal. He consolidated the debt on his primary residence in West Miami, Fla. The original mortgage required only payments of interest on the principal in its first decade. Rubio has only paid off about 4 percent of overall principal since buying the house. At the end of last year, Rubio was worth no more than $355,000, according to an analysis of his personal financial disclosures records filed with the Senate. That does not include any equity he may have in his West Miami home or proceeds expected from his second book, published in December. Rubio, 44, has written and spoken of being torn between a drive for public service and the need to support his family. At times, he has made decisions that put politics ahead of his personal comfort or financial security. He and his wife, Jeanette, moved in with his mother-in-law to make ends meet at the start of his career. Late last year, he liquidated a retirement account, saying he might need the cash for everything from a new refrigerator to college for his eldest daughter. At other points, Rubio’s political connections have helped financially. One of Rubio’s biggest political backers, Miami billionaire Norman Braman, hired Rubio as his lawyer after Rubio left the Florida Legislature in 2008, and Braman funded a teaching position at Florida International University that Rubio still holds. Braman’s foundation also pays Rubio’s wife to advise it on charitable giving. Rubio isn’t shy about his relative lack of wealth, which is a far cry from the financial standing of his fellow Floridian and rival for the Republican nomination, former Gov. Jeb Bush. Rubio told conservative activists in Nevada last week that “the latest one I’ve heard now from some is I’m not rich enough to be president.” In an interview, Rubio said, “The cost of living goes up, and you can just imagine how people who make a quarter of what I do face today.” Rubio’s career began in politics, and he rarely has not held office or worked for those who do. After graduating from the University of Miami’s law school in 1996, the then-25-year-old worked as the South Florida coordinator for Bob Dole‘s presidential campaign. Dole lost soundly to President Bill Clinton, but Rubio impressed Florida GOP power brokers: One, Al Cardenas, offered him a job. Rubio had planned to join a local prosecutor’s office after the election, but the job paid less than $30,000. Cardenas was offering $57,000. Rubio wrote in “An American Son,” his 2012 memoir: “I wanted to be a prosecutor. I wanted to gain courtroom experience. I relished the excitement of trying cases and had little interest in the land use and zoning law that Al practiced. But I had student loans to repay. I wanted to get married. And I wanted to help support my family so my father could at last retire.” Despite the financial incentive, the job at Cardenas’ firm couldn’t hold Rubio’s interest. Less than two years later, he was running for office, winning a seat on the West Miami City Commission and landing a job at another law firm. About a year after that, he moved up to the Florida House, but his new firm deducted Rubio’s $27,000-a-year lawmaker’s salary from his paycheck. In his book, Rubio said he was unsure he could keep his full-time job while spending months at the state Capitol. In 2000, he listed the value of his household furnishings at $5,000 on state records but reported more than $160,000 in student loan debt plus $30,000 in “assorted credit + retail debt.” To save $1,500 a month in rent, Rubio and his wife moved in with her mother. He was climbing the GOP ranks, but, “I imagined telling my children someday that I had been the majority whip of the Florida House but … had to leave politics to make a living,” he wrote in his book. A headhunter helped Rubio land a new job, this one with a $93,000 salary at a law firm that wouldn’t hold his time in Tallahassee against him. It was enough for the Rubios, who had their first child in 2000, to buy a 1,200-square-foot three-bedroom house in the working-class West Miami neighborhood where Rubio grew up. The Rubios would sell that house near the peak of the Florida real estate bubble for more than twice what they paid for it. The buyer was the mother of a neighbor: a chiropractor who unsuccessfully lobbied Rubio to extend a state insurance provision and was later prosecuted for violating campaign finance laws unrelated to Rubio. A few
