A Certain Name Loses Its Luster
In the world of real estate, Donald J. Trump’s name has long been synonymous with luxury. At one of his buildings in Manhattan, a five-story waterfall slides down a wall of marble. White-gloved doormen and panoramic views of the city’s skyline are the hallmarks of another.
It is that image of luxury, which he turned into a brand, that the former president held up as a rebuttal to the lawsuit that he lost on February 16 after a judge determined that Mr. Trump fraudulently inflated the value of his real estate holdings, ordering him to pay a penalty that will exceed $450 million.
“My client is worth hundreds and hundreds of millions,” said one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Alina Habba, during closing arguments at the trial, adding, “let alone the brand, which is worth billions.”
But up and down the spine of Manhattan, condominiums in high-rise buildings emblazoned with Mr. Trump’s name have underperformed, according to sales data from two real estate tracking firms, and an analysis of the data by Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, a professor of real estate at Columbia University in New York.
The turning point was the year 2016, when Mr. Trump was elected president.
In a one-year window, condos in buildings that had the Trump logo went from selling at a 1 percent premium compared with similar units to selling for 4 percent less, Mr. Van Nieuwerburgh said.
Even the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, one of the crowning achievements of the Trump brand, has seen the average price per square meter of its condominiums tumble 49 percent since 2013, according to Ondel Hylton, a director of research at CityRealty, a real estate listing website.
By contrast, condominiums in four buildings where the Trump logo was removed at the
Condos in buildings in Manhattan branded with the Trump logo, like the one below, have dropped in value in recent years. Left, removing Trump’s name from a building.
behest of residents, sometimes after a legal battle, have seen their value shoot back up.
“This analysis cleanly identifies that it is the Trump brand that is responsible for the value deterioration,” Mr. Van Nieuwerburgh said. “Removing the Trump name from the building removes the loss associated with the name.”
A review of the price per square meter 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, according to CityRealty.
An analysis using a slightly different methodology by ATTOM, a property data analytics company, showed that the drop was 17 percent.
The four buildings that removed the Trump logo ended the decade from 2013 to 2023 up 9 percent, outpacing the Manhattan condominium market, which was up 8 percent over the same time period, according to CityRealty.
Mr. Van Nieuwerburgh found that the Trump-branded buildings collapsed in value by 25 percent compared with similar properties from their peak in 2013. “It’s huge,” he said.
The data that was analyzed is for Manhattan. It is possible that the brand is faring better elsewhere in America.
In an email, Eric Trump, the former president’s son, questioned the analyses. “Data can be manipulated to tell any story you want,” he wrote.
A review of the top 100 sales in 2023 found that the best-selling condo in a Trump-branded building placed Number 47 on the list; the second-best-selling unit placed Number 77, CityRealty found.
“I just crunched the numbers in the past half hour, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around it,” Mr. Hylton said.