The bold investor who plans to flip Donald Trump’s childhood home for a profit paid $1.39 million for the brick-and-stucco Tudor in Queens, New York, property records show.
The buyer closed on the five-bedroom home on Dec. 16, and plans to resell it to the highest bidder in two weeks through auctioneers Paramount Realty USA.
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Mr. Trump’s father built the house in the well-to-do neighborhood of Jamaica Estates 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.
A remote auction for the home is already underway through Paramount, which is accepting bids through 4 p.m. on Jan. 17—just a few days before Mr. Trump’s inauguration.
While the investor is, quite literally, taking a presidential gamble, he stands to make a windfall if speculation pans out that the home is now worth as much as $10 million.
New York-based superbroker Dolly Lenz estimated after Election Day in November that Mr. Trump’s surprising win would cause the home—which was headed to auction at the time—to skyrocket in value by three to 10 times, The New York Post reported.
Cue the gutsy investor, who swooped in and snapped up the home for about $140,000 above the $1.25 million asking price.
City property records show the mystery buyer bought the house at 85-15 Wareham Place under a generic limited liability named after the address—not surprising since the home has been in the public spotlight for several months. A person named Michael J. Davis signed the deed as the sole member of the LLC.
The auctioneers previously described the buyer only as a New York investor.
A lawyer for the buyer was not immediately available to comment.
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The two-story home, which has a fireplace, sunroom and detached garage, is in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Queens, where homes of that size typically trade hands for around $1 million.
The December sale and forthcoming auction mark a major change in sentiment for the house on Wareham Place, which got a lukewarm response when it first hit the market over the summer.
Previous owners, restaurateur Isaac Kestenberg and his wife Claudia, originally put the home on the market in June for $1.65 million. They knocked the price down to $1.25 million and planned to take the house to auction, before eventually selling last month.