The Tudor-style house in Jamaica Estates where Donald Trump spent his earliest years has changed hands once more, this time for just under $2 million, a sale that caps off a wild couple of years for the property.
The home was built in 1940 by Trump’s father, developer Fred Trump, in the well-off Queens neighborhood of Jamaica Estates. Trump lived there only until he was four, before the family moved to a larger house nearby. Despite that brief connection, the address has carried outsized market value for decades simply because of who was born there.
Its most recent chapter started rough. After sitting empty for years, the house fell into serious disrepair, a burst pipe caused water damage and mold, and stray cats reportedly took over the property. Developer Tommy Lin picked it up last year for around $835,000 and poured roughly $500,000 into an eight-month renovation, adding a high-end kitchen, upgraded flooring, and updated bathrooms throughout.
That work paid off. The home went under contract in July and the sale, for $1.93 million, showed up in property records this past week. The buyer is an entity called Trump Birth Home LLC, and the identity of the person behind it hasn’t been made public.
It’s not the first time a shell company has bought the house specifically to cash in on the Trump connection. A similarly named entity previously owned the property and rented it out on Airbnb, staged with a life-sized Trump cutout, copies of The Art of the Deal, and Trump memorabilia for guests to enjoy. That earlier ownership group tried to resell the house in 2019 for $2.9 million, but it didn’t sell — and the property was left vacant and neglected for years afterward.
Now 80 and in his second term as president, Trump built his fortune in real estate long before entering politics, most famously with Trump Tower in Manhattan. These days, his taste in property shows up closer to home, he’s added a large new ballroom to the White House and outfitted the Oval Office with the kind of ornate, gilded style associated with his personal properties.
