From Fortune · The Associated Press · · 1m 30s
Trump's boyhood home flips for $1.93 million
A Queens Tudor went from feral cat colony to chef's kitchen, and the flipper cleared roughly half a million.
In brief
A Queens Tudor went from feral cat colony to chef's kitchen, and the flipper cleared roughly half a million. A famous address is worth little when the roof leaks, and a lot once someone spends $500,000 fixing it. Originally reported by Fortune.
Sold for nearly $2 million
Donald Trump's childhood home in Jamaica Estates, Queens, closed at $1.93 million. The price hit real estate sites Friday, months after the July contract. The buyer's name stays private.
Fred Trump built it
The Tudor-style house went up in 1940, built by the president's father, developer Fred Trump. Trump lived there until he was 4. The family sold out years ago.
An $835,000 wreck
Seller Tommy Lin bought the five-bedroom, three-bath house last year for $835,000. It had sat vacant and neglected, with water damage and mold from a burst pipe.
The cats moved in
While the house sat empty, a colony of feral cats took over the rooms where Trump spent his first years. That is the condition Lin inherited.
“a colony of feral cats taking up residence where Trump spent his earliest years”
$500,000 and eight months
Lin gutted the interior over eight months: chef's kitchen, herringbone wood floors, spa-like bathrooms. Half a million in, he roughly doubled his money.
A house that keeps flipping
It fetched $2.14 million in 2017, went up on Airbnb with cardboard Trump cutouts and copies of "The Art of the Deal," then failed to sell at $2.9 million in 2019.
The essence
A famous address is worth little when the roof leaks, and a lot once someone spends $500,000 fixing it.
