NO ONE SEEMS to believe him, but Gov. Deval Patrick was quite emphatic about his near-term future at the Democratic National Convention in September.

“I’m gonna finish my term [as governor] in 2014,” the governor told ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl. “I’m gonna return to the private sector where I’ve spent most of my career. If there is a time sometime later to come back and serve in public life, I hope I’m able to do that. Just not going to be in 2016.”

One reason the governor may hanker for a return to the private sector is to make some money. According to his 2011 state ethics form, Patrick earns $135,218 as governor and his wife is a partner at the Ropes & Gray law firm, specializing in employment and labor law. Between the two of them, they probably have considerable resources. But Patrick and his wife also have considerable expenses. In fact, the governor’s pretax salary covers only a little more than a third of the couple’s annual outlays for mortgage payments and real estate taxes.

The Patricks own two homes – one in Milton and another in Richmond – with mortgages totaling just over $5 million. The combined monthly mortgage payment for the two properties is about $27,000, according to land records and an estimate made using a mortgage payment calculator. The $27,000 figure does not include any interest the couple may be paying on a separate $299,000 home equity line of credit tied to the Milton home. On an annual basis, the mortgage payments would come to $324,000.

The property taxes on the two homes are also substantial. Based on 2012 tax rates, the annual tax bill for the two homes would be about $45,000 a year.

The Patricks put their Milton home on the market in 2009 at an asking price of $1.925 million. At the time, the governor said he wanted to rent an apartment in downtown Boston now that his two daughters had moved out of the house. The asking price of the Milton home was later reduced to $1.725 million, but the home didn’t sell and it appears to have been taken off the market. The Milton home is assessed at $1.78 million.

The Richmond home and the 77 acres it sits on are assessed at just over $2 million, according to town records.

Homepage photo by Dwight Sipler and published under a Creative Commons license.