Vacant and overrun by feral cats, Trump’s childhood home in Queens sells at huge discount
All photos courtesy of Paramount Realty USA
President Donald Trump’s childhood home in Jamaica Estates has traded hands for significantly less than its previous sales price after falling into disrepair and becoming overrun by feral cats. As first reported by the New York Post, the Tudor-style residence at 85-15 Wareham Place sold for $835,000 on March 3—less than half of its 2017 sale price of $2.14 million, according to the deed.
Built in 1940 by the president’s father, real estate developer Fred C. Trump, the two-story brick-and-stucco home housed the Trump family until the future president was four. They then moved to a larger home near Midway Parkway around 1950.
Spanning 2,500 square feet, the home has five bedrooms, four-and-a-half bathrooms, a library, an enclosed patio, a finished basement, and a two-car garage.
In recent years, the home has fallen into disrepair, sitting vacant except for a colony of feral cats cared for by volunteers. As Curbed reported last fall, about 20 to 30 cats were living on the property. Additionally, a burst water pipe has left the basement full of mold.
As the Post reported, construction workers were seen this week removing planks of wood and other debris from the home. According to a neighbor, a worker mentioned the new owner plans to gut, renovate, and eventually flip the house.
The new owner has taken our two mortgages worth $931,500 to pay for the home and renovations, according to property records. The mortgage lender is Accolend, which promotes “fix and flip” loans on its website. The seller in the off-market deal reportedly “just needed the money,” a source with knowledge of the transaction told the Post.
After years of neglect by its previous owner, neighbors took it upon themselves to maintain the property, even paying to have the lawn trimmed a few weeks ago.
“A beautiful house was left abandoned and no one took care of it for all this time,” an anonymous neighbor told the Post. “No one occupied it, no one used it and it was left as an eyesore and we, the community, had to take care of it.”
In December 2016, real estate mogul Michael Davis purchased the home for $1.39 million—nearly double its 2008 sale price of $782,500—with plans to flip it.
In 2017, Davis sold the home for roughly double what he paid—around $2.14 million—to Trump Birth House LLC. The deal was facilitated by Michael Tang, a lawyer who buys real estate for overseas investors in China.
The owner put the home on the rental market in June 2017 for more than $3,500 per month. Months later, the residence was listed on Airbnb for $725 per night, complete with a life-sized cardboard cut-out of the president.
In 2021, Paramount Realty USA, representing Trump Birth House LLC, launched an unsuccessful crowd-funding campaign to raise $3 million to buy the house and donate it to Trump, according to the Post.
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