Trump Tower has become one ofNew York City’s least desirable luxury buildings, a new report suggests.
Apartment prices at the 58-storey skyscraper have fallen and huge tracts of office space have been left vacant since Donald Trump was elected US president in 2016.
The decline has been put down to potential buyers and tenants being put off by the huge security presence installed at the building, as well as the fact that Mr Trump himself is widely seen as toxic among liberal New Yorkers.
Thirteen apartments have been sold at the 36-year-old building since 2016, property records show. For the nine of those sales where there are relevant public records available, eight went for an inflation-adjusted loss, Bloombergreports.
By contrast, of 24,871 third-party sales across Manhattan in the same period, just 57 sold at a loss according to real estate analysts PropertyShark – although that figure does not take into account adjustments for inflation.
The commercial portion of Trump Tower – located in Fifth Avenue – has fared little better.
More than 42,000 square feet of office space is currently vacant, despite advertising “negotiable” rents at below the area’s normal rates.
Its overall occupancy has plunged from 99 per cent in 2012 to just 83 per cent today – a vacancy rate that is twice the Manhattan average.
And, while the building generated a $10m (£8m) profit last year according to the Trump Organisation, its net income is only 26 per cent of what bankers predicted when they evaluated Mr Trump’s fitness for a $100m loan in 2012.
Edward Son, until recently a market analyst for CoStar Group, told Bloomberg: “If I were looking for office space, that would be a building I’d want to avoid.”
