In Another Golden Manhattan Year, Trump Properties Slump

After several years of soaring prices, Manhattan real estate sales levelled off in 2017, in most cases equalling but not surpassing recent records, according to CityRealty’s new year-end report. 

A conspicuous loser on the gilded isle of Manhattan were condo buildings with the name Trump above their front doors. While the average price of condos was $3.1 million, nearly doubling during the past decade, most Trump properties slumped. 

“In the first full year of Donald Trump’s presidency,” the report states, “both average sales price and average price per square foot for the 11 Trump-branded condos in Manhattan were below the Manhattan condo average for the first time ever. The average price of a Trump condo stayed flat at $2.6 million (below the $3.1 million Manhattan average), and average price per square foot in Trump condos fell from $1,891 in 2016 to $1,759 in 2017.” 

One of the worst-performing Trump buildings was the Trump International Hotel & Tower on Central Park West, a frequent protest site in 2017. Here are the top three Trump Loss Leaders in terms of average sales prices: Trump Parc East on Central Park South, down 42 percent; Trump International on Central Park West, down 27 percent; Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, down 26 percent. 

The bad news for the Trump empire should probably not come as a shock. During the 2016 presidential campaign, residents of three Upper West Side buildings known as Trump Place voted to remove the T-word from their facades. And a desperate unit-owner who could not sell his apartment circulated a petition to get the name removed from the Upper East Side building: Trump Palace. The average sale price there dropped just 7 percent this year, which qualifies as a relative success for the Trump portfolio.