Ganim’s million-dollar Bridgeport home for sale
BRIDGEPORT — Mayor Joe Ganim’s million-dollar home in Black Rock is for sale.
The five-bedroom house has four full bathrooms and two half-bathrooms and was built in 1918 on 0.7 acres.
It is listed for $1.35 million, according to a recent New York Times article on Bridgeport real estate.
Ganim purchased the home two years ago in the waterfront section of town. He put it on the market in November.
According to municipal records, the mayor purchased it in January 2021 and has since claimed it as his primary address. The Zillow online real estate marketplace shows Ganim paid $333,000. The property was appraised last year at $569,410 and his tax bill was $29,143 in 2019 and $10,059 in both 2021 and last year.
A spokesperson for The Times said the paper was unaware it was featuring Ganim’s house.
The crux of The Times’ article is what Bridgeport has to offer to potential residents.
The reporter interviewed one of Ganim’s staffers, Andy Toledo, about his reasons for moving from New York City to Bridgeport. Toledo was hired last summer as the administration’s liaison with state government and, it was just announced, will now instead be Ganim’s director of community relations.
Tiadora Josef, the city’s communications director, said the administration had nothing to do with the article, which the mayor’s office promoted Thursday on social media.
According to Josef, the newspaper got in touch with Realtor Nathaniel Rodriguez, who helped Toledo when he moved.
Rodriguez corroborated Josef’s explanation and added of the real estate boom that hit Bridgeport beginning in 2020: “I think the majority of my clients always speak to the $3,000 in rent (in New York City) compared to cost-of-living here . ... A ton of my clients were from Brooklyn, Bronx, all day, every day.”
The Times’ article noted Toledo moved to Bridgeport from the Bronx.
For the last several years Ganim has bought up several properties — condominiums and single and multi-family homes — around the city, renting out some and renovating and “flipping” others for a profit.
Ganim, who initially ran Bridgeport from 1991 until 2003, has paid taxes on eight different addresses — some condominiums, some homes — since voters returned him to office in 2015, according to the tax collector’s database: 37 Thorne Place, vacant land at 57 Thorne Place, a unit at 80 Cartright St., 120 Huntington Turnpike, 46 Beacon Court, 60 Hansen Ave., a unit at 65 Ellsworth St. and 36 Monroe St.
Tax records show he still owns the Thorne Place and Ellsworth Street properties and, at least for the past two years, has claimed the former as his home address in an annual residency filing the city’s elected officials and appointed board members are supposed to submit each January to the town clerk.
Municipal records also show the mayor purchased and quickly unloaded the Cape Cod-style home at 46 Beacon Court, purchasing it in January 2020 for $184,000 and selling it that September for $439,000. The threefamily house at 60 Hansen Ave. he bought in August 2019 for $280,000 was sold just over two years later for $402,500.
At times, Ganim has sometimes chosen to rent an apartment rather than staying at one of his own properties. For example, in January 2017 he was renting a downtown apartment in the eight-story Harral Security Wheeler building on Main Street, erected in the early 1900s and reopened in November 2016 by Spinnaker Real Estate Partners after a long vacancy.
Ganim’s real estate activities landed him in some trouble in 2016 when it was discovered he had been marketing his Ellsworth Street condominium online through Airbnb Inc. for short-term stays. The condominium association told him he had broken the rules.
Real estate seems to run in the family, with his father, George Ganim having, either with his wife or other family members, owned millions of dollars worth of commercial and residential properties in Monroe, Easton, Bridgeport, Fairfield and Milford.