'It's huge': Condos in N.Y. Trump buildings selling for way less than similar properties

According to an economist handed two separate reports of property valuations in New York City, if you own a condo in a Manhattan building with Donald Trump's name on it, it will sell for less than similar properties when you want to unload it.

In a deep dive into the impact that the Trump brand has on properties and changes after the former president's name is removed, the New York Times is reporting that the Trump name is worth a lot less than the former president asserted in the financial fraud trial that came to an end last week with a potential $450 million back-breaking fine.

According to the Times' Rukmini Callimachi, who collected data from real estate listing website CityRealty and ATTOM, a property data analytics company, "A review of the price per square foot of condominiums in the seven buildings in Manhattan that still carry the Trump name found that the value dropped 23 percent between 2013 and 2023," with ATTOM setting the decrease at 17 percent.

She then noted that the four buildings that removed the Trump logo from their facades by the end of 2020 "ended the decade from 2013 to 2023 up 9 percent."

According to the report, Trump's landmark Trump Tower has also been hit hard with the average price per square foot of its condominiums collapsing "49 percent since 2013, according to Ondel Hylton, the senior director of content and research at CityRealty," adding that the aging building has also been surpassed by newer developments.

As Columbia University economist Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh put it, “It’s huge,” citing a 25 percent drop "compared with similar properties from their peak in 2013."

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“This analysis cleanly identifies that it is the Trump brand that is responsible for the value deterioration,” Van Nieuwerburgh elaborated. “Removing the Trump name from the building removes the loss associated with the name.”

Surveying the numbers, a stunned Ondel Hylton, the senior director of content and research at CityRealty, told the Times, "I just crunched the numbers in the past half hour, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around it."

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