DONALD TRUMP’S CHILDHOOD HOME AUCTIONED IN JAMAICA ESTATES, NEW YORK CITY FOR $1.25 MILLION~BUT TRUMP WASN’T THE SELLER
Basement, Patio, Balcony, 5 Car Driveway with 2 Car Garage. Note: This
property is not currently owned by President Elect Donald J. Trump or
the Trump family.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
Donald Trump’s home in Queens has finally sold it to a mystery buyer in a
$1.25 million deal that closed last week.
The sellers, restaurateur Isaac Kestenberg and his now-estranged
wife, Claudia, bought the modest five-bedroom house in Jamaica Estates
for $782,500 in 2008. The Kestenbergs “received a big, fat check to
close very fast, with no contingencies,” Misha Haghani, of auction house
Paramount Realty USA, tells Gimme Shelter.
The new owner, though, isn’t planning to stick around — and in fact is planning to flip the property.
Haghani’s firm is auctioning the Tudor on the new buyer’s behalf on
Jan. 17, just days before Trump’s inauguration. The Kestenbergs first
put the home, located at 85-15 Wareham Place, on the market for $1.65
million in June with a traditional broker.
The price later dropped to $1.2 million.
In September, Trump told Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show” that he
wanted to buy it back. The beleaguered home was then slated to go to
auction on Oct. 19, the evening of a presidential debate, for a measly
minimum bid of $849,000. But the couple yanked it off the auction block
at the last minute — on a gamble that Trump could win the election.
He did, and the home shot up in value. These presidential childhood homes, Haghani says, “are very rare.”
The new buyer is a sophisticated New York real estate investor who
understands the risk of an auction and who believes that the home is
worth far more than he paid.”
Experts previously told The Post that the home could be worth up to
$10 million to wealthy investors who might turn it into a museum.
Developer Fred Trump, the president-elect’s father, built the home in
1940. By the time the Donald was 4 years old, the family moved to a
larger brick mansion around the corner. While the home is modest by
Trump standards, with nary a touch of glitz or accent of gold in sight,
it still features a stately formal dining room, a fireplace, a sun room,
a paneled study, a “summer kitchen” and a five-car driveway with a
two-car detached garage.
The Jan. 19 auction represents a “truly once in a lifetime
opportunity for a bidder to name their price to own a piece of history,”
Haghani says, adding that this time there will be no minimum bid. To
place a bid, potential buyers must pay $20 on the Paramount Realty website.