According to a new report from a publication called Crain’s Chicago Business, efforts to sell properties at the Trump development in Chicago — known as the the Trump International Hotel & Towers — haven’t exactly been going great. New Jersey doctor Stephen Soloway was “among the early investors” at the Chicago property, the publication explains, but he’s now “slashed the prices on the four units he’s been trying to sell for nearly a year.” On February 19, which was last week, Soloway shaved a combined $650,000 from the asking prices for his four units, which he is selling individually.
In the past eight months, ten sales of units inside Chicago's Trump Tower went for less than what the sellers initially paid. https://t.co/VJ9m1Zxb8k
— Crain's Chicago Business (@CrainsChicago) February 23, 2021
Originally, Soloway apparently put his units up for sale in March 2020 at a combined asking price of $4.3 million, but in the time since, he’s cut over $2 million from the price. Now, the combined asking price for the four units is $2.25 million, which is under the $2.28 million that Soloway initially paid when he purchased the units, meaning that — assuming a sale goes through with a price close to the current asking price — Soloway would be taking a loss. Soloway also previously invested in a Trump property in New York, where he opposed a push to remove Trump’s name from the building. In 2018, then-President Donald Trump nominated Soloway to a position on the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, but Soloway subsequently withdrew his name from consideration.
Crain’s reports that they “found ten sales of Trump units in the past eight months where the sellers sold for less than they paid for the unit, and one where they sold for more than they paid for the unit,” meaning that losses among investors at Trump properties are growing, which doesn’t bode well for the potential of future investments. A Chicago condo at Trump’s property recently sold for about 51 percent of what the seller originally spent, marking a huge loss.
This month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Vornado Realty Trust was considering buying out or otherwise eliminating the Trump Organization’s stakes in two profitable office buildings in San Francisco and Manhattan, respectively. Both buildings have higher individual yearly net operating incomes than other cornerstone Trump properties like New York’s Trump Tower.
Trump has faced increasing criticism as the disastrous effects of his presidency have piled up. After the Capitol rioting last month that he inspired with his lie that the 2020 presidential election was rigged for Joe Biden, banks in New York and Florida moved to sever their ties with Trump.
