Donald Trump built his wealth through estate investments and development. He inherited a portion of his father’s real estate business, which he then expanded through strategic property deals, hotel developments, and branding.
Trump also ventured into entertainment, including his popular show The Apprentice and his new social media app Truth Social, which recently went public via a SPAC merger and now trades as Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (NASDAQ:DJT).
Investing in real estate is not as easy as it once was, especially with rates at elevated levels. However, investors can explore alternative routes to enter the real estate market, including investing in real estate investment trusts (REITs) or participating in real estate crowdfunding.
So, how can you invest like Donald Trump? Well, his portfolio is highly concentrated in two states – New York and Florida. Let’s focus on New York, which he is more known for.
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New York State of Mind
Alexander’s (NYSE:ALX) is a REIT that leases, manages, develops, and redevelops properties in New York, making it a great way to get exposure to the city where Donald Trump began building his portfolio. Alexander’s portfolio consists of five properties in greater New York City, including 731 Lexington Avenue, the Rego Center, and The Alexander apartment tower.
Alexander’s currently pays a quarterly dividend of $4.50 per share, equating to an annualized rate of $18.00 per share, which gives its stock a yield of about 8.1% at the time of this writing.
It’s important to note that Alexander’s has maintained its $18 annual dividend since 2018, making it a very reliable source of income to go with the potential price appreciation in its world-class assets.
Another way to invest like Trump
You can also get started in real estate like Donald Trump by using a real estate crowdfunding platform, like Bezos and Khosrowshahi-backed Arrived Homes or Marcus and Millichap-backed EquityMultiple. Real estate crowdfunding platforms allow you to connect with other investors and pool your money to purchase property for passive real estate income.
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Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform, starts trading on the Nasdaq tomorrow.
The Case-Shiller Home Price Index for January is expected Tuesday morning, with economists projecting a rise in prices year over year, though holding relatively steady for the previous month. The report will give insight into the value of single-family homes as interest rates still hover around 7%.
On the earnings front, McCormick & Company and GameStop will report tomorrow.
Video Transcript
JOSH LIPTON: Time now for what to watch Tuesday, March 26th. Trump Media and Technology Group starting to trade tomorrow. The parent company of former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social trading on the NASDAQ and effectively adding billions to Trump’s net worth. This coming after a New York appeals court today gave Trump 10 more days to post a $175 million bond to satisfy his New York civil fraud case.
AKIKO FUJITA: And turning to the economy. The Case-Schiller home price index for January coming out in the morning. Economists forecasting the prices to go up year over year and hold relatively steady from the previous month.
This comes after home prices hit a new all-time high in December. The report giving us more insight into the value of single family homes as mortgage rates still hover around 7%.
JOSH LIPTON: And finally, on the earnings front McCormick and company and GameStop both reporting tomorrow. GameStop announcing fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2023 results after the closing bell. Gaming retailer having a rough start to the year down more than 10%. But closing higher today.
Ahead of former President Donald Trump‘s March 25 deadline to pay his New York civil fraud fine, his son, Donald Trump Jr., claimed that people are changing the values of Trump properties based on convenience.
New York Judge Arthur Engoron found Trump and some of his business associates had illegitimately inflated the value of his assets to obtain more favorable terms from lenders and insurers. In February, the judge ordered the former president to pay roughly $355 million in penalties for fraud, plus interest. With this, the payment exceeds $464 million. He also banned him from serving in top roles in any New York business for three years. Trump has always denied any wrongdoing.
To appeal his civil fraud conviction, the former president has to pay the $464 million bond, which he has admitted he is having difficulty raising the funds for. If he’s unable to get the money together by Monday, New York Attorney General Letitia James may start seizing his assets. This has led people to speculate about the true value of his properties, such as Mar-a-Lago and Trump Tower.
During a conversation with Newsmax‘s Eric Bolling on Thursday, Donald Trump Jr. came to his father’s defense.
“If it’s worth 18 million and that’s good for the soundbite at the time, it’s worth 18 million, if it’s worth hundreds of millions the next day for a different purpose, it’s worth hundreds of millions and that’s what’s going on,” he said.
He went on to say that it’s not going to end with “them trying to go after Donald Trump” and eventually, others could have their assets seized as well.
Donald Trump Jr. added: “They’re willing to seize your assets, the people screaming about fascism are acting awfully a lot like the fascists.”
Newsweek has emailed Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. for comment via Trump’s campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung.
As Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort residence, is not for sale—and the Trump family has never expressed the wish to put it on the market—it’s hard to determine its value. In 2017, Forbes valued Trump Tower at $371 million.
According to Sportico, which cited the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, Trump International Golf Links Scotland is his second most profitable course, bringing in $52 million between January 2022 and April 2023 for the presumed 2024 Republican presidential nominee.
His course in Jupiter, Florida, is his fourth most profitable course, having made the former president $39.4 million in that period.
Newsweek could not immediately verify Sportico’s data and has contacted a Trump representative by email to comment on this story.
According to Trump’s 2023 Office of Government Ethics certified financial disclosures, obtained by the Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington (CREW), Trump has loans on multiple properties that may affect their value. The combined total of the properties listed by the disclosures is at least $200 million.
One is a mortgage on Trump Tower, incurred in 2012, that is for over $50 million. Another, for private estate Seven Springs, was incurred in 2000. It is worth between $5 million and $25 million.
40 Wall Street also has a mortgage of over $50 million. James said these properties had “fraudulent” and “misleading” values and could end up being seized.
If the properties are not seized, it has been speculated that the former president may have to sell off some of his real estate empire to pay the penalty.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Former President Donald Trump is running out of time to sell Mar-a-Lago for cash that could help with his appeal bond in the New York civil fraud case.
Trump has until March 25 to find a bond or cash to appeal the $454 million judgment against him or risk having his assets seized, and recent court filings suggest it may not be possible without liquidating some of his real estate portfolio. Trump’s lawyers revealed on Monday that despite approaching 30 underwriters to back the bond, Trump cannot find an insurance company to back the bond that he needs to stop James from beginning to collect on last month’s judgment.
The former president’s attorneys said that because underwriters are seeking cash not property to back the bond, Trump would need to mortgage or sell some properties to find enough cash to obtain an underwriter. Trump complained that he was being “forced to mortgage or sell Great Assets, perhaps at Fire Sale prices.” But the window to do so is closing.
“These sales take weeks and months to negotiate,” Richard Epstein, a New York University law professor who specializes in property rights, told Newsweek.
“Any potential sale of Mar-a-Lago would require an ample due diligence period to review liens and legal issues,” Mary Shanklin, the author of American Castle: The Notorious Legacy of Mar-a-Lago, told Newsweek. “Also, the title is clouded with an easement to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.”
Bess Freedman, a real estate expert and CEO of Brown Harris Stevens, also told CNN on Tuesday it’s unlikely Trump has enough time to sell his properties, noting that he’d need at least 30 days to get any of them sold. However, Mar-a-Lago, where the president resides in Palm Beach, Florida, could be Trump’s “best-case scenario” because it’s “something that could be sold quickly.”
“I think the valuation is something in the hundreds of millions and I think there could be a buyer for something like that,” Freedman said.
“There could be plenty of international people who want to buy that property, and Palm Beach is like ‘the Nvidia of real estate’—it’s just shot up like a rocket,” she said, adding that she would encourage that option if he’s looking for a property to sell quickly.
Luxury home sales in Palm Beach increased by 20 percent year-over-year during the fourth quarter of 2023, according to a Douglass Elliman and Miller Samuel report. It said the average price per square foot in the luxury market, which represents the top 10 percent of all sales, rose to $3,770. At 62,500 square feet, that puts Mar-a-Lago at just shy of $250 million. Trump, however, claimed at trial that his Florida home is worth more than $1 billion.
Even though the Palm Beach market is “robust” right now, Shanklin said, “it’s important to keep in mind that buyers with that kind of capital are rare—and even more so at the prospect of purchasing a property with approvals needed for alternations, expansions and some renovations.”
But Epstein said there’s “no reason” for Trump to be selling his property. Instead, he said the $454 million judgment should be challenged as an excessive fine before Judge Arthur Engoron and a federal court.
“There is no reason for this desperate action, which by the way would reveal how Engoron lowballed the estimate,” he said. “It is a horrific situation where an utterly bogus judgment can insulate itself from appeal by imposing excessive damages. He had no methodology and could have said a billion dollars.”
Update 03/21/24 5:01 p.m. ET This story was updated with comments from Shanklin.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Former President Donald Trump says he may be forced to sell off his “Great Assets” at “Fire Sale prices” in order to raise the $464 million bond required as he appeals the judgment in his New York financial fraud trial. In a motion filed Monday, Trump’s lawyers seek to postpone payment of the bond as they appeal Judge Arthur Engoron’s judgment in the case. In the Jan. 6 election interference case, Trump’s lawyers file a brief asking the Supreme Court to rule that presidents have “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution for acts committed while in office. Here are the latest legal developments involving the presumptive Republican presidential nominee for 2024.
New York financial fraud
With bond deadline approaching, Trump looks for alternatives
Key players: Judge Arthur Engoron, New York Attorney General Letitia James
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On Tuesday, Trump vented on social media about the March 25 deadline to post a $464 million bond while he appeals Engoron’s judgment in his civil financial fraud trial, The Hill reported.
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“Judge Engoron actually wants me to put up Hundreds of Millions of Dollars for the Right to Appeal his ridiculous decision. In other words, he is trying to take my Appellate Rights away from me,” Trump said in a post to Truth Social. “Nobody has ever heard of anything like this before.”
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“I would be forced to mortgage or sell Great Assets, perhaps at Fire Sale prices, and if and when I win the Appeal, they would be gone. Does that make sense?” Trump added.
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New York law requires a defendant to pay 110% of a civil judgment into an escrow account while that person appeals the decision in a case.
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Engoron ruled that Trump, his adult sons and his family business were guilty of carrying out years of financial fraud when they inflated the value of assets to obtain favorable bank and insurance rates.
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Thanks to a loan from the underwriter Chubb, Trump has already posted a separate bond for nearly $92 million while he appeals the jury’s verdict in the E. Jean Carroll defamation lawsuit. But Chubb and 29 other lenders refused to give Trump a loan to pay the larger bond amount.
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Trump now has limited options to raise the $464 million, the New York Times reported.
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He can hope his court appeals will lead to a stay, quickly sell off real estate assets, obtain a gift from a wealthy supporter, ask James to extend the 30-day grace period she has already given him or file for bankruptcy.
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If none of those options are available to Trump and he fails to pay the full bond on Monday, James could begin to seize Trump’s assets and freeze his bank accounts.
Why it matters: Even as a politician, Trump’s brand has been synonymous with wealth. His New York real estate holdings, some of which were at the center of the financial fraud trial, are reportedly some of his most prized possessions.
Jan. 6 election interference
Trump asks Supreme Court to rule that presidents have ‘absolute immunity’ from prosecution
Key players: Judge Tanya Chutkan, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, U.S. Supreme Court, Trump lawyer John Sauer, special counsel Jack Smith
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On Tuesday, Trump’s lawyers filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing that a president enjoys “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for his official acts,” Reuters reported.
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“The president cannot function, and the presidency itself cannot retain its vital independence, if the president faces criminal prosecution for official acts once he leaves office,” Sauer wrote in the filing.
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Trump is charged with conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
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His attorneys claim Trump’s actions were part of his official duties as president and argued in their brief that allowing him to be prosecuted would forever alter the job.
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“The threat of future prosecution and imprisonment would become a political cudgel to influence the most sensitive and controversial presidential decisions, taking away the strength, authority and decisiveness of the presidency,” the filing states.
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In fact, Trump is the first president in U.S. history charged with a crime after leaving office.
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Smith has countered that Trump contested the election in an attempt to remain in power, and that no one is above the law.
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Chutkan and the court of appeals both ruled in Smith’s favor, but Trump has appealed the matter to the Supreme Court.
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An Ipsos/Politico poll released this week found that 70% of U.S. voters and 48% of Republicans reject Trump’s assertion that he is immune to criminal prosecution for acts committed while in office.
Why it matters: While Trump’s lawyers argue that presidential power would be upended if the Supreme Court ruled that a commander in chief could never be prosecuted for acts committed while in office, prosecutors have focused on Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. Left unsaid is what consequences might unfold if the Supreme Court enshrines protections for a president’s actions, whatever they may entail, while still residing at the White House.
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Monday, March 18
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Lawyers for former President Donald Trump file an emergency appeal challenging Judge Scott McAfee’s ruling that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can continue to prosecute Trump and 18 others on election interference charges now that lead prosecutor Nathan Wade has stepped down. Trump’s lawyers tell a New York appeals court that he faces “insurmountable difficulties” in securing the $464 million bond from lenders that he is required to pay as he appeals the judgment in his financial fraud civil trial. Trump is also asking the court to lower the amount he must pay while he appeals the case. Here are the latest legal developments facing the presumptive Republican presidential nominee for 2024.
Georgia election interference
Trump appeals judge’s decision allowing Fani Willis to remain on case
Key players: Trump lawyer Steve Sadow, Judge Scott McAfee, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, former lead prosecutor Nathan Wade, the Georgia Court of Appeals
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On Monday, Trump and eight of his co-defendants filed an emergency appeal of McAfee’s ruling that allowed Willis to remain on the case against Trump and 18 others so long as Wade stepped aside, USA Today reported.
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“The motion notes that the Court found that Willis’ actions created an appearance of impropriety and an ‘odor of mendacity’ that lingers in this case, but it nonetheless refused to dismiss the case or disqualify her,” the filing with the Georgia Court of Appeals states.
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Willis and Wade admitted to having a romantic relationship, but denied conflict-of-interest claims by the defendants that Willis had benefited financially by hiring Wade or had lied when called to testify about that relationship.
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Willis indicted Trump and 18 others for their efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. So far, four of the defendants have pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against the others charged in the case.
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McAfee has yet to schedule a date for the trial for the remaining defendants.
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It is unclear whether the appeals court will take the case.
Why it matters: While McAfee allowed Willis to remain on the case, the appeals process could further delay the trial against Trump and the other defendants until after the November election.
New York financial fraud
Trump asks appeals court to allow him to delay payment of bond
Key players: Judge Arthur Engoron, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Trump lawyers Alina Habba and Clifford Robert, Trump Organization general counsel Alan Garten
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Trump’s lawyers told a New York appeals court that the former president had approached 30 underwriters to try to secure the $464 million bond required for him to proceed with his appeal of Engoron’s judgment in the financial fraud trial, but none had agreed to lend him the money, CNN reported.
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“The amount of the judgment, with interest, exceeds $464 million, and very few bonding companies will consider a bond of anything approaching that magnitude,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in a court filing.
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Trump is asking the appeals court to reduce the bond amount and to delay its payment until after his appeal is heard.
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Last month, Engoron ordered Trump to pay the state $355 million plus interest for years of fraudulent business practices, including the inflation of his assets to obtain favorable loan and insurance rates.
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Trump is appealing the decision, which obliges him to deposit 110% of the total amount owed into an escrow account as the appeals court hears the case.
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In Monday’s filing, Garten also painted a dim outlook for Trump’s ability to raise the bond amount.
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“Defendants have faced what have proven to be insurmountable difficulties in obtaining an appeal bond for the full $464 million,” he wrote, ABC News reported.
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James has said that if Trump does not come up with the full bond amount, she would go after his real estate assets.
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“Obtaining such cash through a ‘fire sale’ of real estate holdings would inevitably result in massive, irrecoverable losses — textbook irreparable injury,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in their filing.
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Habba and Robert also argued that the bond amount was “unconstitutionally excessive.”
Why it matters: During his trial, Trump told the court that he had $400 million on hand that he could apply toward a bond. Since then, he lost two high-profile cases, pushing his liabilities over half a billion dollars. He has paid a nearly $92 billion bond amount as he appeals a jury’s verdict in the defamation lawsuits brought by columnist E. Jean Carroll.
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Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a Fox News town hall at the Greenville Convention Center in Greenville, South Carolina, on Feb. 20, 2024.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
Donald Trump is racing to stave off a pair of civil penalties totaling nearly $540 million, without having to first put up the full amounts in cash or bonds.
The former president’s lawyers claim that he would face “irreparable” harm if required to fully secure his judgments in order to keep them from coming due, and might even have to quickly sell off properties that can’t be rebought.
They also say Trump can’t simply post a cash deposit — at least not in his New York civil business fraud case, where he is facing $454 million in fines and interest alone.
“No one, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, has five hundred million laying around,” Trump’s attorney Chris Kise told an appeals court judge last week.
But legal experts say there’s another option that Trump’s lawyers haven’t mentioned in the court filings: Trump could offer up some of his properties as collateral to borrow what he needs — potentially from private equity sources.
There are “lots of private lenders out there in the debt markets and private equity markets that could lend” to Trump, said Columbia University law professor Eric Talley.
“In all cases, the loans would probably have to be secured with Trump properties, but if there is enough equity in some of them, he should be able to obtain secured credit, even on a compressed timeline,” Talley said.
In this courtroom sketch, former U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as his attorney Alina Habba delivers closing arguments during E. Jean Carroll’s second civil trial in which Carroll accused Trump of raping her decades ago, at Manhattan Federal Court in New York City on Jan. 26, 2024.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
The professor underscored the irony of Trump using his real estate to fight a lawsuit in which he was found liable for fraudulently inflating his property values for financial gain.
Any loans “would themselves involve making declarations of the value of the property — and that of course is what got him into this mess to begin with,” said Talley.
But accurately appraising the value of Trump’s assets is not a serious obstacle. As Trump’s lawyers noted during the fraud trial, the institutions that have lent him money already have conducted their own analyses of Trump’s finances, and did not rely solely on the claims at issue in his financial statements.
A more important factor could be whether Trump’s real estate assets are already mortgaged, said law professor John Coffee.
“He would have to come up with clean real estate property that is not already securing something that some other bank has a lien on,” Coffee said.
“Does he have that property? I can’t tell you.”
What Trump owns
As of late January, the Trump Organization comprised 415 entities, according to Barbara Jones, a retired federal judge tasked with monitoring the company’s finances.
Of those, Jones identified 70 operating entities that generate revenue. That includes long-term leases of buildings such as 40 Wall Street, commercial office space on 13 floors of the 58-story Trump Tower, plus the Trump National Doral Miami resort.
In New York City, the value of Trump’s real estate holdings totals $690 million, according to a September 2023 estimate by Forbes. Some of the most prominent buildings that bear Trump’s name in the city are largely owned by other entities.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the fraud case, said she would seize Trump’s real estate assets if he cannot pay his civil penalty.
“There’s absolutely no reason for the New York attorney general to be kind and gentle to him if he doesn’t post the bond,” Coffee said.
A view leading into Trump National Doral in Miami, Florida, on April 3, 2018.
Michele Eve Sandberg | AFP | Getty Images
Trump said in a deposition last year that he had “substantially in excess of $400 million in cash.” But his lawyers claimed last week that, if Trump is forced to secure the full $454 million penalty, “properties would likely need to be sold to raise capital under exigent circumstances.”
They instead offered to post a $100 million bond, but New York appeals court Judge Anil Singh rejected the proposal.
Unless a full appeals court reverses Singh’s decision, Trump has until March 25 to post an “undertaking” — cash or bonds — covering the entire penalty in order to stop it from taking effect during his appeal.
Trump has also asked a federal judge to delay another fast-approaching deadline to pay an $83.3 million penalty in E. Jean Carroll’s civil defamation case.
Carroll’s attorneys argued that Trump’s request “boils down to nothing more than ‘trust me.'”
Trump’s next move
If Trump does attempt to sell assets to meet his undertaking, he won’t have much time to get it done.
He would have to hire a broker to market his properties, and any deal would have to close to free up the cash to use toward a bond, said Neil Pedersen, owner of New York-based bond agency Pedersen & Sons.
“There could be opportunistic buyers approaching him as well,” Pedersen noted.
So far, Trump has given no indication that he is moving in that direction.
“There are no sales planned or contemplated,” Kise told CNBC in an email before Singh’s ruling. “So no appraisers hired, no steps taken, etc.”
The Trump Tower on 5th Avenue is pictured in the Manhattan borough of New York City on April 18, 2019.
Caitlin Ochs | Reuters
After Singh ordered Trump to pay the full penalty, Kise and Trump’s other attorneys did not reply to questions about whether they were now preparing to sell off properties.
Coffee said Trump “can very likely” get a loan to help him meet his undertaking. That’s in part because Singh temporarily halted another penalty that would bar Trump from applying for loans from New York registered lenders.
Moreover, said Coffee, Trump is well-known within New York financial circles, so he is “not going into a market with strangers.”
“The real problem is, can he give the banks enough collateral that they’re satisfied?”
Talley agreed. “There is a lot of ‘dry powder’ out there — not just with banks, but also in non-banks,” he said.
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Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a Fox News town hall at the Greenville Convention Center on February 20, 2024 in Greenville, South Carolina.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
They also say Trump can’t simply post a cash deposit — at least not in his New York civil business fraud case, where he is facing $454 million in fines and interest alone.
“No one, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, has five hundred million laying around,” Trump’s attorney Chris Kise told an appeals court judge last week.
But legal experts say there’s another option that Trump’s lawyers haven’t mentioned in the court filings: Trump could offer up some of his properties as collateral to borrow what he needs — potentially from private equity sources.
There are “lots of private lenders out there in the debt markets and private equity markets that could lend” to Trump, said Columbia University law professor Eric Talley.
“In all cases, the loans would probably have to be secured with Trump properties, but if there is enough equity in some of them, he should be able to obtain secured credit, even on a compressed timeline,” Talley said.
In this courtroom sketch, former U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as his attorney Alina Habba delivers closing arguments during E. Jean Carroll’s second civil trial in which Carroll accused Trump of raping her decades ago, at Manhattan Federal Court in New York City on Jan. 26, 2024.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
The professor underscored the irony of Trump using his real estate to fight a lawsuit in which he was found liable for fraudulently inflating his property values for financial gain.
Any loans “would themselves involve making declarations of the value of the property — and that of course is what got him into this mess to begin with,” said Talley.
But accurately appraising the value of Trump’s assets is not a serious obstacle. As Trump’s lawyers noted during the fraud trial, the institutions that have lent him money already have conducted their own analyses of Trump’s finances, and did not rely solely on the claims at issue in his financial statements.
A more important factor could be whether Trump’s real estate assets are already mortgaged, said law professor John Coffee.
“He would have to come up with clean real estate property that is not already securing something that some other bank has a lien on,” Coffee said.
“Does he have that property? I can’t tell you.”
As of late January, the Trump Organization comprised 415 entities, according to a retired federal judge tasked with monitoring the company’s finances.
Of those, Jones identified 70 operating entities that generate revenue. That includes long term leases of buildings like 40 Wall Street, commercial office space on 13 floors of the 58 story Trump Tower, and the Trump National Doral Miami resort.
View leading into Trump National Doral in Miami, Florida on April 3, 2018.
Michele Eve Sandberg | AFP | Getty Images
In New York City, the value of Trump’s real estate holdings totals $690 million, according to a September 2023 estimate by Forbes. And some of the most prominent buildings that bear Trump’s name in the city are largely owned by other entities.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the fraud case, said she would seize Trump’s real estate assets if he cannot pay his civil penalty.
“There’s absolutely no reason for the New York attorney general to be kind and gentle to him if he doesn’t post the bond,” Coffee said.
Trump said in a deposition last year that he had “substantially in excess of $400 million in cash.” But his lawyers claimed last week that, if Trump is forced to secure the full $454 million penalty, “properties would likely need to be sold to raise capital under exigent circumstances.”
They instead offered to post a $100 million bond, but New York appeals court Judge Anil Singh rejected the proposal.
Unless a full appeals court reverses Singh’s decision, Trump has until March 25 to post an “undertaking” — cash or bonds — covering the entire penalty in order to stop it from taking effect during his appeal.
Trump has also asked a federal judge to delay another fast-approaching deadline to pay an $83.3 million penalty in E. Jean Carroll’s civil defamation case.
Carroll’s attorneys argued that Trump’s request “boils down to nothing more than ‘trust me.'”
If Trump does attempt to sell assets to meet his undertaking, he won’t have much time to get it done.
He would have to hire a broker to market his properties, and any deal would have to close in order to free up the cash to use toward a bond, said Neil Pedersen, owner of New York-based bond agency Pedersen & Sons.
“There could be opportunistic buyers approaching him as well,” Pedersen noted.
So far, Trump has given no indication that he is moving in that direction.
“There are no sales planned or contemplated,” Kise told CNBC in an email before Singh’s ruling. “So no appraisers hired, no steps taken, etc.”
Trump Tower on 5th Avenue is pictured in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., April 18, 2019.
Caitlin Ochs | Reuters
After Singh ordered Trump to pay the full penalty, Kise and Trump’s other attorneys did not reply to questions about whether they were now preparing to sell off properties.
Coffee said that Trump “can very likely” get a loan to help him meet his undertaking. That’s in part because Singh temporarily halted another penalty that would bar Trump from applying for loans from New York registered lenders.
Moreover, said Coffee, Trump is well known within New York financial circles, so he “not going into a market with strangers.”
“The real problem is, can he gives the banks enough collateral that they’re satisfied?”
Talley agreed. “There is a lot of ‘dry powder’ out there, not just with banks but also in non-banks,” he said.
The timing couldn’t be worse for Donald Trump as he faces the prospect of having to sell property to cover a massive verdict against him.
The former president said in a court filing Wednesday he may soon need “to raise capital under exigent circumstances” to push ahead with an appeal of New York state’s $454 million civil fraud verdict against him. A brutal market for many commercial property owners means he faces significant losses in his real estate empire if he unloads assets.
The billionaire has few options. He must pay the full judgment by March 25 or arrange a bond for at least 110% of the amount in order to put the fine on hold while he appeals. To get an appeal bond, Trump will need to hand over cash, sell properties or use them as collateral, tying up most if not all of his liquid assets for months or longer.
Unless Trump can convince the appeals court to put the verdict on hold during his entire appeal, he could find himself in a financial squeeze.
If he’s forced to sell, “there would be no way to recover any property sold following a successful appeal and no means to recover the resulting financial losses,” Trump attorney Alina Habba said in the filing. Meanwhile, New York Attorney General Letitia James has made clear that she’s prepared to seize Trump’s assets if he doesn’t pay the verdict or post an appeals bond on time.
Brutal Market
Making matters worse is a brutal market for many commercial real estate owners. Property values plunged as borrowing costs rose, and the remote work trend that started during the pandemic continues to cut into demand for office space. Prices slumped 22% in the year through January, according to real estate analytics firm Green Street.
Habba didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Many sellers have been forced to accept drastically lower prices. The Aon Center, a Los Angeles office tower, recently sold for $147.8 million, about 45% less than its previous purchase price in 2014. A Los Angeles office building located near Century City and Beverly Hills sold for about 52% less than its price five years ago.
The Trump Organization owns or invests in multiple office towers from New York to San Francisco. One of its key Manhattan properties, 40 Wall St., was purchased by Trump in what his business hails as “one of the great real estate deals of all time” back in 1995. In 2015, it was valued at $540 million, according to commercial mortgage-backed securities data. That has since fallen to $270 million, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates.
Trump’s filing with the appeals court was the first time he’s hinted publicly that he may not have enough liquid assets to cover the verdict in the fraud case, where a judge ruled Feb. 16 that the former president had misled banks for years in violation of New York law. Trump also owes $83.3 million to writer E. Jean Carroll, who won a defamation suit against him last month, making matters even worse for the presidential candidate.
In testimony last year, Trump claimed to have more than $400 million in cash. While that’s a hefty sum, it wouldn’t be enough to cover the bonds he’d need to post with the court while appealing the back-to-back verdicts.
Trump SPAC Shares
Meanwhile, Trump’s finances could get a boost from his Trump Media & Technology Group — which operates the Truth Social platform he posts on daily. In 2021, it agreed to merge with a special purpose acquisition company called Digital World Acquisition to become a publicly traded company.
A frenetic rally in a stock tied to Trump Media & Technology Group has minted a nearly $4 billion windfall for Trump. But that won’t help him for now. The profit is only on paper and he’ll have to wait months to monetize it. If the stock stays up, he could use it replenish his coffers down the road.
Meanwhile on Wednesday, the co-founders of Trump’s media company accused the former president of trying to water down the value of their shares. The lawsuit, filed in Delaware, could delay the merger deal even more, depriving him of billions as a fresh source of cash to pay down his verdicts.
Trump has proposed posting a smaller $100 million bond while he appeals the New York fraud verdict, arguing that the judgment against him was “more than adequately secured” without posting a full bond to appeal. Trump said his “vast ownership interests in New York real estate” was sufficient to ensure he’ll pay the fine if his appeal failed. After all, he argued, “trophy properties” like 40 Wall Street cannot be “removed from the jurisdiction in secret.”
In the appeals court filing, Trump’s attorney said other properties could be used for collateral, including Trump Tower and Trump Park Avenue in Manhattan, his Seven Springs estate outside New York City, and Trump National Golf Club.
‘Insufficient’ Assets
James balked at Trump’s offer for a smaller bond, arguing in a letter to the appeals court that risked leaving the state empty handed if Trump’s appeal failed.
Trump and the other defendants in the case, including his two grown sons, “all but concede that Mr. Trump has insufficient liquid assets to satisfy the judgment,” James said in the letter. “A prevailing plaintiff is entitled to have her award secured, and defendants have never demonstrated that Mr. Trump’s liquid assets could satisfy the full amount of the judgment.”
James has made clear that she’s prepared to seize Trump’s assets if he doesn’t pay the verdict or post an appeals bond on time, mentioning 40 Wall Street explicitly as a potential target in a recent interview with ABC News. Habba, Trump’s attorney, criticized those remarks in her letter to the court, accusing James of “shamelessly” threatening to seize Trump’s assets “if she is not paid quickly enough.”
Despite Trump’s warnings about his financial condition, an appeals court judge in Manhattan denied his emergency request Wednesday for a temporary halt to enforcement of the verdict in the fraud case, at least for now.
But the former president will get another shot at arguing for a delay that would last throughout his legal challenge to the civil fraud judgment. James will file a response to that request by March 11, with any response by Trump due March 18. A full appeals court panel could rule any time after that.
Photo: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images
When Judge Arthur Engoron handed down a $464 million penalty to Donald Trump earlier this month, the ex-president found himself in a bind. With most of his net worth tied up in real estate, Trump does not have the cash to pay the fines outright — meaning he would need to seek out a loan to avoid a fire sale of his properties. But because Engoron banned Trump from taking out loans with New York banks, he could not easily get a loan to secure a bond for the full monetary judgment.
But on Wednesday, Trump caught a break: New York Supreme Court Appellate Judge Anil Singh ruled that Trump can apply for a loan to pay the bond on the nearly half-billion in fines, responding to a filing Trump’s team had made earlier that day in appeals court.
This means that, for the time being, Trump will not need to sell off his New York properties. But it was far from a total victory. Trump’s lawyers lost their effort to pause enforcement of the penalty, or to remove the independent director of compliance who oversees the Trump Organization now that Trump has been barred from doing so. Bloomberg also reports that the ruling will only remain valid “until a full appellate panel hears Trump’s request for a delay that would last for his entire appeal.”
Before Judge Singh delivered his decision, Trump’s lawyers argued that if he could not apply for loans, he would probably need to sell some of his assets in New York. “The exorbitant and punitive amount of the judgment coupled with an unlawful and unconstitutional blanket prohibition on lending transactions would make it impossible to secure and post a complete bond,” they wrote. Singh’s decision now allows Trump to go to a bank to get the money — though he will still be required to pay tens of thousands of dollars in interest each day the bond is not posted.
But due to his six bankruptcies and a long history of not paying bills, some major banks are understandably hesitant to loan to the former president, which has required him to go off the beaten path for post-presidential refinancing. When Trump goes to a lender in the next few weeks, he may need to negotiate on highly unfavorable terms. He might not have to sell off his New York properties just yet, but he may have to put one up as collateral.