The New York Times (NYT) reported on the 18th that after real estate mogul former President Donald Trump was elected president, the ‘Trump’ brand contributed to lower real estate values. According to reports, real estate brokerage City Realty assessed that the value per unit area of seven Trump-branded condominiums in Manhattan, New York, fell by an average of 23% between 2013 and 2023.
The NYT reported that real estate market research company ATTOM analyzed the results using a different methodology and found that the value per unit area of these buildings fell by an average of 17% during the same period.
Real estate values, which had been on the rise since 2013, peaked in 2016 when former President Trump was elected president and then turned downward. In contrast, City Realty analyzed that the four condominiums in Manhattan that removed the Trump brand logo from their buildings between 2018 and 2019 rose 9% in value between 2013 and 2023, outpacing the average growth rate of the Manhattan condominium market, which rose 8% in the nearby period.
Regarding the results of this analysis, Eric Trump, former President Trump’s second son and the actual executive of the Trump Organization, said in an email response, “Data can be manipulated to tell any story you want, but our building is the most expensive per unit area in the world.” “There is no change in the fact that it is being sold, and this cannot be denied,” he countered. However, looking at the status of high-end condominium transactions in 2023 analyzed by City Realty analysts, the NYT reported that, contrary to Eric Trump’s claims, Trump-branded properties are far from the most expensive properties sold in Manhattan.
The NYT reported that the most expensive Trump-branded property was also ranked 47th among the top 100 properties in Manhattan by transaction amount last year. Previously, former President Trump compared the value of the Trump brand to that of Coca-Cola during a civil trial on fraud loan charges and claimed that the actual asset value was higher than the book value, saying, “I did not even reflect the brand, which is my best asset, in the books.”
On the 16th of February, the Manhattan District Court in New York ruled that former President Trump should pay a fine of $355 million.