The headlines that ‘Trumps sells California home’ should not alarm anyone. The Trump organization has been buying and selling real estate in California for decades. The purchaser is Hary Tanoesoedibjo, a media executive who ran for VP of Indonesia in 2014. He has been Trump’s business partner on two projects in Indonesia, a resort on the island of Bali and a golf course and resort in the forest of West Java, south of Jakarta. These projects, when completed, will be worth $500 million.
Certain questions about the property purchase have not been answered by the Trump Organization but Eric Trump, the managing partner with Donald Trump Junior, told Real Deal Los Angeles, “given my father’s presidency and our hectic schedules, our family has not had the chance to enjoy the property in recent years and has seen minimal use. As such, it simply made sense to sell.”
Trump originally purchased the property at 809 N. Canon Dr. for $7 million in 2007. The County assessed the property in 2020 at $8.3 million. While Trump, himself, did not appear to use the house frequently even when visiting California, it was not rented out. In certain financial disclosures, Trump announced he never received income from the rental property.
Taxes show that the property was owed $96,000 per year. Trump briefly owned a second property in the same block selling for $10.3 million in 2008. One of the last remaining Trump properties in California is a golf club in Rancho Palos Verdes, and has been selling off plots of land around it for oceanfront housing. Many of these business dealings have drawn intense scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers and government ethics experts who say there’s no effective checks and balances on individuals who would seek influence with the White House by spending money on Trump real estate.
But California is not the only state to be offloading Trump property. A warehouse in South Carolina, land in the Dominican Republic, and condos in Las Vegas have all seen purchases within the last few years. According to the U.S. Constitution, the president must be barred from receiving gifts or payments from foreign leaders but he’s currently fighting to federal lawsuits that claim he is running afoul of that prohibition by accepting business from foreign dignitaries at his hotels.
The $13.5 million sale of this Beverly Hills mansion is likely to exasperate these ethical concerns. The property was sold off market, and even though it was not listed publicly, real estate experts are shocked at the high price. A median home value in the Beverly Hills real estate market has gone from $2.3 million in 2007 to $3.5 million in 2021, a 52% increase and Trump sold this property for 93% more than he paid for it in 2007. With this type of gain it is no wonder Trump sells California home.
