Here’s how he got an incredible bargain for the property:

Trump initially made a lowball offer to the owner (the Post sisters) in 1986 who turned it down

To prevent anyone else from purchasing it, Trump decided to purchase the beachfront property right in front of the estate and then announced that he was going to “build to ugliest building ever” to block Mar-a-Lago’s oceanfront view

According to Trump:

“I announced that I was going but the ugliest building ever... with no windows, no nothing... just a wall so you couldn’t see the ocean.

In fact, the town almost got sick... they wanted to change the zoning.”

This scared off potential buyers/bidders for the property

A couple years later, Trump got a call and eventually purchased Mar-a-Lago for $8 million

Today, Mar-a-Lago today is worth far in excess of what Trump bought the estate for, with some sources valuing it in the hundreds of millions

For more business and founder stories just like this, make sure to follow.

Via @johal_capital
R/P: triple net investor X
Avatar of charlie.munger.wisdom

charlie.munger.wisdom

2024-04-10 22:39:56

one of the deals you did that got a lot of attention
i would say you stole the property but legally you bought mar-a-lago for about eight million dollars more or less that's right and today it's probably worth
one hundred million or more two hundred million i don't know but how did you come to buy that when it was you know pretty cheap and well that was an interesting deal because you know from florida that's one of the great pieces of land and one of the great
the greatest house in america i would say and
turned it into the mar-a-lago club which is very successful but
at the time this was a nineteen eighty six i went there and it was for sale for thirty eight million dollars
and i said i don't want to pay that was a lot of money nineteen you know eighty six thirty eight million dollars us like three hundred million dollars today so they want thirty eight million dollars so i said you know what but stupidly the marjorie merriweather post foundation the children were not smart like she was when she died
they sold the beach
and they sold the beach to a friend of mine
and the friend of mine was a great guy he he founded kentucky fried chicken he founded a couple of different hospital corporation of america messi
and he was unfortunately very sick he had cancer
and i went to him and i said would you do me a favor could i buy the beach now there's the beach in front of mar-a-lago mar-a-lago is on twenty two acres it's his massive house
and they sold the beach for two million dollars a million and a half
and he said you know donald your friend of mine
i will sell you the beach and i overpaid for it you know i paid two million dollars for the beach but that was the whole beach and