Donald Trump’s childhood home in Jamaica Estates, Queens, sold for $1.93 million after a renovation that transformed the five-bedroom, three-bathroom Tudor-style house from a neglected property into a modern residence.
The previous owner, Tommy Lin, bought the home last year for $835,000 after it had sat vacant and neglected for years. Lin then spent another $500,000 on an eight-month interior overhaul that added a chef’s kitchen, herringbone wood floors and spa-like bathrooms, according to the New York Post.
The home was built in 1940 by Fred Trump, Trump’s father, and the family has not owned it in years. Trump lived there until age 4. The sale price of $1.93 million appeared Friday on real estate websites after a buyer, whose name has not been disclosed, entered into a contract in July.
The property has traded several times in recent years. It sold for $2.14 million months after Trump became president in 2017, according to Zillow. It was later listed for rent on Airbnb with copies of a life-sized cardboard cutout of Trump, copies of his book 'The Art of the Deal' and a framed People magazine cover featuring Trump.
The house was listed for sale again in 2019 with an asking price of $2.9 million, but went unsold until Lin bought it. In the meantime, the New York Post reported, the home had fallen into disrepair with water damage, mold from a burst pipe and a colony of feral cats living there.
Trump, now 80, made his fortune in real estate, including Trump Tower in Manhattan, before moving into politics. As president, he is overseeing his own residential overhaul, including a massive ballroom at the White House and gold-plated fixtures in the Oval Office.
That is the part Washington’s spending class never likes to admit: private capital can rescue what neglect and inertia leave behind. A run-down house became a higher-value asset because someone put money at risk, improved it and let the market decide the price.
The taxpayer did not subsidize the turnaround. Free enterprise did what bureaucracy rarely does well: allocate capital, impose discipline and reward productive use of property.