Nobody in New York wants to live in Donald Trump’s childhood home. And with an asking price that’s two times the Queens neighborhood’s median sale price, who would?
The modest 2,000-square-foot Jamaica Estates house, where Fred Trump raised the Donald, will once again face the hammer on Nov. 14. Qualified bidders are being asked to submit written offers and a refundable 10 percent deposit. There is no starting bid, although the seller has set an undisclosed reserve price.
But considering that the current owner, an anonymous Chinese investor, paid $2.14 million in 2017 for the slice of presidential history — despite a median sale price of $980,000 for single-family houses in the area — it’s likely that yet another investor, rather than a Queens resident, will offer the winning bid.
“As a house, it’s worth about $1 million,” says Misha Haghani, the principal of Paramount Realty USA, which is handling the auction of the home for a third time. “We aren’t selling real estate. We are selling a dream, a collectible, something that is meaningful to a lot of people.”
Haghani adds that while he thinks it is possible that a “Trump fan with a significant net worth” could step in to make the 1940s house great again, he finds it more probable that a politically motivated group — either for or against Trump — will crowdfund the purchase for their own purposes.
“Neither of the last purchasers intended to live in the home and no family would pay a premium just to live in this house,” he says. “I see a collective pooling money to buy this.”
But a sale at any price isn’t a sure thing. The mysterious seller already tried and failed to attract a buyer this year when they listed it in February for $2.9 million. It was pulled off the market after just 10 days. Worse still, the five-bedroom Tudor was even a flop as a rental. Shortly after the 2017 sale, the house turned up on Airbnb — filled with Trump tchotchkes and the obligatory life-size cutout of the POTUS — asking $725 a night. The Post even spent the night. With no hot water and a lingering stench of mothballs and lemon Pledge, it was no Mar-a-Lago.
This game of hot potato started in 2016, shortly before Trump’s inauguration, when real-estate investor Michael Davis dropped nearly $1.4 million for the property — 78 percent more than the $782,500 it last traded at in 2008. Art-of-the-deal-Davis then made a 54 percent profit flipping it to the current owner, who appears to be stuck with Chez Trump.
Nevertheless, Haghani is confident that the house will sell this time around. He’s even offering a prize to the person who comes closest to guessing the sale price.
“We are going to give away $10,000 to whoever is closest to guessing the sale price,” Haghani says. “This is the third time we are selling this house, so we thought we would have some fun with it.”
