The real estate market in America is extremely hot these days, with prices in urban markets that saw dips during the pandemic creeping back up. In the suburbs meanwhile, there are countless stories about pandemic-driven bidding wars and an influx in corporate money pushing potential new homebuyers out of the market altogether. It’s all very hectic and stressful, unless apparently if you’re Donald Trump.
According to a report, the best deal in real estate is easy to find if you don’t mind having Trump’s name on the building. The twice-impeached former president who encouraged a coup attempt days before he left office in disgrace is struggling to get market value for condos at his properties, and the quotes are pretty damning.
According to the Associated Press, the high-priced condos in Trump buildings are much cheaper than other comparable buildings. And those selling to get out are struggling to make their investments back.
“Fifty percent of the people wouldn’t want to live in a Trump building for any reason … but then there are guys like me,” says Lou Sollecito, a car dealer who recently bought a two-bedroom unit with views of the Empire State Building. “It’s a super buy.”
The purchase price was $3 million, nearly a million less than the seller paid in 2008.
The AP report detailed thousands of transactions at Trump-owned properties and saw a huge drop in values at these buildings. As prices are surging basically everywhere else, there are deals to be had at Trump buildings.
An Associated Press review of more than 4,000 transactions over the past 15 years in 11 Trump-branded buildings in Chicago, Honolulu, Las Vegas and New York found prices for some condos and hotel rooms available for purchase have dropped by one-third or more.
That’s a plunge that outpaces drops in many similar buildings, leaving units for sale in Trump buildings to be had for hundreds of thousands to up to a million dollars less than they would have gone for years ago.
“They’re giving them away,” says Lane Blue who paid $160,500 in March for a studio in Trump’s Las Vegas tower, $350,000 less than the seller paid in 2008. It was his second purchase in the building this year and may not be his last.
There could be any number of reasons for that drop, but it certainly seems like Trump himself is a factor here considering how hot things are elsewhere. And for many, Trump’s name on the building is now an opportunity to get something that’s rare in real estate these days: a good deal.