Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Florida estate could be the key to him paying the $464 million bond he owes in his New York fraud trial — but he needs to move fast, a real estate expert said Tuesday.
Though the former president’s real estate is expansive, he won't have time to sell before the Monday deadline set for him to pay the bond, Bess Freedman, CEO of the luxury estate firm Brown, Harris Stevens, told CNN’s Erin Burnett.
Mar-a-Lago is the one property that's tempting enough that a buyer might be willing to snap up fast.
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“I think it’s a little, we don’t have enough time,” Freedman said. “ … I think you need at least 30 days to get any of these properties sold.
“But Mar-a-Lago, potentially that could be 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.”
Burnett pointed out there wouldn’t be enough time for a buyer to even see the place.
"That would be literally if you're talking about doing that between now and Monday, that's picking up the phone, calling someone and then literally writing a check,” she said.
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“Yeah,” said Freedman. “I mean, there could be plenty of international people who want to buy that property. I mean, there's properties that are priced at 150, 200 million that are nearby that and Palm Beach … it's just shot up like a rocket and people do want to live there.”
Trump said on Tuesday that he might be forced to sell his real estate at “fire sale” prices to pay the bond.
Mar-a-Lago has been valued at around $240 million, Burnett said. Trump would be the definition of a “desperate seller,” so it’s unclear what he’d get in a fast sale, she added.
That would leave him still with another $224 million to find.
A former aide of Trump's also identified Mar-a-Lago as one of Trump's "babies" that he would be "devastated" to lose.
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