The house pictured above is a Canadian government building.
It’s 3801 Riviera Drive in Coral Gables, Fla., a ritzy neighbourhood in Miami. The house has six bedrooms, marble floors, an inground saltwater pool, and an estimated market value of $5.5 million U.S. And it’s the official residence of Canada’s consul-general to Miami, Louise Leger.
Yes folks, this is how top Canadian diplomats live -- or, at least, how they used to live until the feds decided, a few budgets ago, to start cutting back on some of the posh properties Canada’s foreign diplomatic corps has been enjoying.
The 2012 budget called for the federal government to generate $80 million in revenue selling properties abroad.
So the Coral Gables house is going up for sale, according to a report at the Ottawa Citizen. If it gets the estimated $5.5 million, that will amount to nearly a tripling of the $1.9 million U.S. that Canada paid for the property in 2009. But a Miami realtor told the Citizen the house is likely to fetch something in the $3-million range. Still, not bad, especially considering that Miami's real estate market has been through tough times lately.
“In various cities across the U.S.A., Canada will replace up to 12 properties that are larger than we currently require. One of these is Miami,” Foreign Affairs spokesman John Babcock told the Toronto Star.
Last year, the feds sold Macdonald House, a massive mansion in London that housed part of Canada’s High Commission in the U.K. That sale alone racked up $530 million. (London property prices have gone out of this world the past few years.)
