Bold Investor Snaps Up Donald Trump’s First Home

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A New York investor has purchased President-elect Donald Trump’s first home in Queens and will take it to auction next month in hopes of turning a profit, auctioneers Paramount Realty USA told Mansion Global.

The Tudor-style home in Jamaica Estates, Queens, will hit the auction block on Jan. 17, a few days before Mr. Trump will be sworn into office, said Misha Haghani, owner of auction house Paramount Realty USA. The unidentified investor hopes to capitalize on recent estimates from high-profile brokers that Mr. Trump’s shocking victory against Hillary Clinton caused the property’s value to spike as much as tenfold, the auctioneer said.

Mr. Haghani of Paramount would not identify who the buyer was—describing the new owner only as a New York investor—or say for how much the home sold. The house on Wareham Place was last listed with Laffey Real Estate for $1.25 million.

About a week after Election Day in November, superbroker Dolly Lenz estimated that the home’s market value had skyrocketed in the wake of Mr. Trump’s victory, speculating that it is now worth as much as three-to-10 times as much as before, The New York Post reported.

That would make the home worth as much as $10 million, or more.

Mr. Trump, 70, has expressed interest in buying the property himself. He told Jimmy Fallon on NBC’s “Tonight Show” as much on Sept. 15.

“That’s it, that’s where I was born…I want to buy it,” Mr. Trump said on air—though it was an off-the-cuff statement.

Whoever it is, the new mystery investor went into contract on the home in early December, according to listing records. The home’s broker, Howard Kaminowitz of Laffey Real Estate, did not immediately return a request for comment.

The two-story home, which has a fireplace, sunroom and detached garage, is in the well-off neighborhood of Jamaica Estates, where homes of that size typically trade hands for around $1 million.

Mr. Trump’s father built the home in 1940, and the address is listed on Mr. Trump’s birth certificate. The family later moved into a grander, red brick house around the corner on Midland Parkway when the president-elect was only 4 years old, meaning Mr. Trump’s memories from his birthplace are likely scarce.

The sudden sale and upcoming auction mark a major turn of events for the five-bedroom home on Wareham Place, which got a lukewarm response when it first hit the market over the summer.

The mystery investor bought the home from Isaac and Claudia Kestenberg, who originally put the house on the market in June for $1.65 million. They knocked the price down to $1.25 million before deciding to take the home to auction with Paramount Realty. That auction was postponed at the last minute on Oct. 19, about three weeks before Election Day, in hopes of stoking more interest.

This story was written by Becky Strum and originally appeared on Mansion Global.

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