Trump has dominated the headlines recently, as he announced his intention to run for office again and then became the first former commander in chief to face criminal charges. But the polarizing politician and reality TV star is first, and perhaps foremost, a real estate mogul. And the past few years have not been kind to his sprawling residential real estate portfolio.
While home prices across America generally rose quickly during the “pandemic pump” housing market, sale prices at the properties listed on the Trump Organization’s website have either declined or appreciated at a slower pace than the local markets they’re in.
To be sure, the COVID-19-era real estate market will be one for the history books, defined initially by ultracheap mortgages, the liberation of newly mobile Americans who could pursue “remote work” away from their abandoned offices, and a continued housing shortage that all pushed home prices up in dramatic ways. The price gains have begun to correct in some areas, but in large part, historically high prices appear to have stuck.
But Trump’s real estate brand hasn’t benefited as much from the favorable housing market. Price appreciation for condos in properties listed on the Trump Organization’s website has been lower both in the luxury real estate and overall housing markets.
For example, the median condominium sale price in the U.S. rose 38% between 2019 and 2022, according to CoreLogic data. But over the same period, the median sale price at Trump Organization properties declined 14%. (The properties Realtor.com® analyzed were all condos.)
And while the price changes varied around the country, his condos didn’t outperform any of the local markets where they’re located.
Some local experts believe the price declines are related to the former president’s controversial politics, especially since most of his properties are in Democratic-leaning areas. Since he ran for office, his name has been pulled off some of his prime real estate holdings in major cities.
“A lot of people have said the buildings are great,” says Dan Neiditch, the president of River 2 River Realty in New York. “But when they have the Trump name on the buildings, it’s all about branding. And when that’s the case, you live and die by your brand, by your name.”
Trump was recently charged with 34 felony counts related to hush money payments made to an adult film star, is under investigation for election interference in Georgia, and is facing multiple lawsuits. That could also affect his real estate holdings, especially in places where the former president isn’t popular.
To come up with our findings, we pulled home sale records from CoreLogic, a real estate transaction data provider, for properties listed on the Trump Organization’s website. Then we compared them with condo sale prices for the counties where those properties are located. Because the CoreLogic data is not perfect, we also excluded transactions that appear to have erroneously high and low transaction amounts recorded (likely data entry mistakes).
While all of the Trump Organization’s condo projects were included in the national numbers, Trump real estate markets with fewer residential units (including Connecticut, Hawaii, and Westchester, NY) are not detailed in the pull-out sections below.
We used 2019—the year before pandemic fluctuations roiled U.S. housing—as a starting point/benchmark for our calculations.
Note: It’s unclear if every property listed on the Trump Organization’s website is owned by the organization. The Trump Organization is a privately held corporation, so it isn’t required to disclose the specifics of its real estate holdings to the public. And even though the Trump name might prominently grace a building, it doesn’t mean that the organization owns the property. The former president licenses his name for a host of different things, including real estate and consumer products.
The Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment.
For decades, Donald Trump made a name for himself as a New York City real estate celebrity and tabloid fixture. The Big Apple was his launching pad, where the Trump Organization began developing residential properties in the early 1980s. And it’s still where his company has the most buildings.
He announced his first run for the presidency, in 2015, in his iconic Trump Tower on 5th Avenue, where he rode down a golden escalator.
But in the past few years, the organization’s Manhattan properties have fallen behind the competitive Manhattan condo market.
In 2022, the median sale price for all of the organization’s New York City properties combined was about $1.75 million. Within the past 10 years, that figure hit a high point in 2015, at $2.3 million, and a low in 2020, at around $1.4 million.
Since just before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump Organization’s prices are down about 16%—far behind the roughly 11% price growth for all condos in Manhattan over the same period.
The list of Manhattan buildings listed on the organization’s website includes the Trump Tower, in Midtown, and Trump Parc, on the southern edge of Central Park. On the Upper West Side, the organization has six buildings that make up Trump Place, situated along the Hudson River. Three are apartment buildings, which were not included in this analysis, and three are condominium buildings. Residents voted to remove the Trump name from the buildings in 2019. There is also Trump International Hotel & Tower, on Central Park West. In Midtown East, the organization owns Trump World Tower, looking onto the East River, just across the street from the United Nations headquarters. And on the Upper East Side, the organization owns Trump Park Avenue, Trump Palace, and 610 Park Avenue.
Despite the successful efforts to remove the Trump branding from several of his New York properties, much of the Trump residential real estate is still highly valued among certain buyers.
According to luxury real estate broker Dolly Lenz, the properties themselves and their management are second to none.
“The management of the properties—whether it’s Trump Tower, Trump International, Trump World Tower—are some of the best-run buildings in New York,” she says. “They choose the best doormen, the best concierges, so the service is top quality.”
But many of the Trump Organization’s properties are older and have trouble competing with the newer buildings, which offer more modern designs, layouts, and amenities. Trump Tower opened in 1983—40 years ago.
For some local experts, it’s politics that have caused the lagging prices.
“New York and New Jersey are majority-Democrat states. I believe the prices of Trump’s properties take a hit just because of the politics of the people in the area,” says Neiditch, of River 2 River Realty. “We’ve had people who lived there, who said, ‘Hey, we want to sell. We don’t want to live in a building where that name’s on the outside.’”
Access to Trump Tower, which was more restricted during Trump’s presidency due to heightened security and Secret Service activity, also likely affected the value of the units in the bellwether building, says one real estate expert, who asked not to be named.
Fed up with the backlash against him and his politics, Trump officially left New York. Since 2019, the former president has called the purple state of Florida home. He now resides in his oceanside Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.
The Trump Organization has residential properties in and around Miami, including Trump Grande, Trump Tower Sunny Isles, and Trump Hollywood.
The Trump-branded properties in Florida’s Miami-Dade and Broward Counties appreciated by about 15% between 2019 and 2022, after first dipping in 2020, the biggest price gains of any location analyzed.
But prices shot up much higher in Florida during the pandemic as the Sunshine State saw an influx of companies and new residents. In the Miami-Dade and Broward markets where Trump properties are located, the median condo sale price has increased by more than 50%, going from just under $200,000 in 2019 to just above $300,000 in 2022.
And for the luxury condo segment in the same area (the upper 10% of sales by price), which is closer to the price range of the organization’s properties, prices grew by more than 60% over the same period.
Trump International Hotel & Tower’s opening in Las Vegas in 2008 marked the organization’s first expansion into the western U.S. But condo sale prices in the building have substantially lagged behind overall Las Vegas condo price appreciation.
The median sale price at Trump International Hotel & Tower took a significant hit in 2020, dropping from $305,000 to $214,500. Since then, the prices rose but were still down about 8% below pre-pandemic prices.
Meanwhile, in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas and the surrounding cities, the median condo sale price rose by more than 50% from 2019 to 2022.
June Stark, a real estate agent and broker at The Stark Team–Elite Realty, in Las Vegas, blamed pandemic restrictions as one of the reasons that Trump property prices dropped. Reduced tourism affected the building, which is a combined hotel and condo tower.
“The building itself is beautiful, probably the best-maintained hotel and condo tower in the city,” Stark says, noting that she was among the first agents to sell the residences.
Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago looms large in the city, with its height, distinctive style, and prime location, but the sale prices have taken a dive.
At 98 stories and reaching 1,388 feet, it’s the seventh-tallest building in the nation and second in Chicago (behind the Willis Tower, formerly known as the Sears Tower). The building’s off-centered, tapering spire is hard to mistake, but it’s the 20-foot-tall and 141-foot-wide “TRUMP” sign on the building on the northern bank of the Chicago River that informs anyone who passes by who owns the building.
But while the building’s prominence is unquestionable, the median sale price for residences there dropped by almost half in 2020 alone—going from just below $1.5 million the year before to $750,000. Since then, prices have come back some, but at $1 million in 2022, the median sale price is still down more than 30% compared with before the pandemic.
During the same three-year period, 2019–22, the median condo sale price in Cook County, which includes most of the Chicago area, rose about 12%. But for additional context, condos priced closer to Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago, those within the top 10% of sales by price for Cook County, also saw a big drop in prices in 2020, and an overall price decline greater than the Trump Organization’s building.
Across the Hudson River from the Trump Organization’s Manhattan properties is 88 Morgan Street Condominiums, formerly known as Trump Plaza Residences, in downtown Jersey City. The 55-story building, developed by the organization in the late 1980s, provides a sweeping view of the Manhattan skyline and the Upper Bay.
But 88 Morgan Street has not seen the same price gains as condos nearby. The median condo price in Hudson County, NJ, which includes everything from Bayonne to North Bergen and from the Hudson River across the Hackensack River to Kearny and Harrison to the west, saw modest appreciation during the pandemic, rising by about 14% from 2019 to 2022.
In Jersey City, condo sale prices at 88 Morgan Street rose only 4%.
“I know in those buildings in New Jersey, there have been fights about taking his name off,” says Neiditch, of River 2 River Realty, “but that’s been going on since back in 2016.”
Source: www.realtor.com
