The Value of Mar-A-Lago

Former President Trump complained on the stand recently about the judge’s citation that put the value of the resort at $18 million, based on a Florida tax appraisal record. Trump insists it is worth well over $1billion. To help us sort through this argument is Jeff Lichtenstein of Echo Fine Properties, he’s also the author of “How Making a sandwich can change your World.”

Jeff, when Trump was asked if he believed Mar-A Lago was worth $1billion, he said he believed it was between $1billion and $1billion and a half.  That is a huge range – to go from $18 million to over $1billioln – what’s the reality check on that?

Well, as real estate agents we can puff and inflate the value – but he has a point and he doesn’t. Rush Limbaugh’s place recently sold for $155 million and that was 2.3 acres. Also the Surfside place was just sold for $120 million and that was 2 acres. So that’s $60 million per acre. If you look at Mar-a-Lago that’s 17.5 acres – which works out to above $1billion. The problem is that it’s the land. In the other examples you’re buying the land, which is really the best use of the property – so you’d have to bulldoze Mar-a-Lago, which you can’t do because it’s a national historic register. A developer would love to go in there and build condos non it, but it is what it is.

And that’s a really key point. The New York attorney general says that Trump came up with this original valuation of $738 million by claiming falsely that it was unrestricted property – that it could be sold and developed for residential use – what are the limitations on what you can do with a property like Mar-a-Lago?

From what I understand – it can be used for the resort that it is, and you could live there. If you want me to sell it, I could sell it tomorrow for $1billion dollars to a developer, but you just can’t. It’s just stuck with its best use. It’s probably more in the range of $350-400 million as there’s been plenty of properties that have sold above $100 million – but going over $1billion is too much.