Trump condos going for bargain prices because no one wants to live in them
The pandemic and the presidency seem to have tanked Mr Trump’s brand
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Your support makes all the difference.In Chicago, condo prices are down 34 per cent. In Las Vegas, even as prices soar at other properties, hotel rooms are down 4 per cent. In Waikiki, Hawaii, prices have taken a 23 per cent hit over the last four years. These are just some of the dire numbers facing the Trump business empire now that its famous figurehead is out of the White House.
According to a new analysis from the Associated Press, rents and sale prices are way down at Trump-branded properties across the country, some losing more than a third of their value in recent years.
This has sent people to Trump looking for bargains—though in the world of New York real estate, that’s a relative term.
“Fifty percent of the people wouldn’t want to live in a Trump building for any reason ... but then there are guys like me,” Lou Sollecito, told the AP on Friday. “It’s a super buy.”
The wealthy car dealer bought a $3 million unit in Trump World Tower in New York City, complete with views of the Empire State Building. It’s still a princely sum for most, but the purchase price was reportedly a million less than the seller paid for the apartment in 2008.
The hit has been particularly bad in New York, the symbolic heart of the Trump enterprise, where prices are at 15-year lows and Trump buildings are selling at lower prices per square foot than the average across the rest of the city, according to the analysis.
“I have never seen buildings plummet so dramatically,” Ondel Hylton, a senior content director at CityRealty, told the news agency. “It seems like this is a bottom.”
The Independent has reached out to the Trump Organization for comment.
What’s driving the declines cannot solely be attributed to the ex-president himself—the world did just suffer a business-crippling pandemic, after all.
But even when he was in office, residents at Trump condos in Panama, Toronto, and Manhattan began stripping the Trump name from the facades of their building.
Following the 6 January Capitol riots, banks, the PGA golf tour, and other business partners vowed to cut their ties with Mr Trump.
There’s also the substantial financial costs facing Mr Trump personally, given that he’s facing nearly 30 different lawsuits and investigations since leaving office, some of them, like the Manhattan district attorney’s criminal probe, which are already at the grand jury stage.
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