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CNN suggests Trump should sell Mar-a-Lago to post bond, $18M value magically turns to $240M

March 22, 2024 | | Print Article

“Liberal INSANITY.”

That’s how one user on X described a recent CNN segment in which real estate CEO Bess Freedman, of Brown Harris Stevens, suggested that former President Donald Trump could “quickly” sell Mar-a-Lago to post an appeal bond for $454 million in his New York civil fraud case.

After all, the property, Freedman argued, “the valuation is something in the hundreds of millions.”

Wait, what?

The whole reason that Trump has to come up with the exorbitant bond is because Democratic Attorney General Letitia James and Judge Arthur F. Engoron said the historic property is only worth $18 million.

“I think you need at least 30 days to get any of these properties sold,” Freedman told CNN’s “OutFront” host, Erin Burnett on Tuesday. “But, the property you alluded to — Mar-a-Lago — potentially, that could be something that could be sold quickly.”

“I think the valuation is something in the hundreds of millions,” she said, “and I think there could be a buyer for something like that.”

It’s as easy as “picking up a phone, calling someone, and then literally writing a check,” Burnett stated.

“Yeah,” Freedman agreed. “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 and $2oo million that are nearby that, and Palm Beach is like the Navidia — Nvidia, excuse me — of real estate. It’s just shot up like a rocket.”

As BizPac Review reported, Trump was understandably furious when James convinced Engoron that Mar-a-Lago was worth a paltry $18 million. In October 2023, the presumptive GOP nominee valued it at at least a billion.

“She said that Mar-a-Lago, she convinced the judge that Mar-a-Lago was worth — in Palm Beach, Florida, the most expensive land in the world, I guess, and the most expensive houses, definitely, in the world — that Mar-a-Lago’s biggest house, the most spectacular place in all of Florida was worth $18 million when it’s worth approximately — could be close to hundred times that amount,” Trump told members of the press at the time.

“And based on that testimony and based on her convincing the judge that Mar-a-Lago was worth $18 million instead of $1 billion to $1.5 billion, which would sell very easily, which we’ve already proven but we’ll have people come up and say that to prove it, the most important people, the brokers that make the sale, but based on that he ruled against me, he ruled fraud. I mean, he said fraud,” he added.

According to Inman, which focuses on real estate news: “During Q4 2023, the number of luxury sales in Palm Beach increased 20 percent year over year from four to six sales, according to Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. Meanwhile, the median sales price dropped about 52 percent year over year to $15.38 million. The Elliman report also notes that an abundance of pocket listings over the last three years, despite an otherwise limited supply, has helped to prevent bidding wars.”

A CNN graphic valued the estate at $240 million.

“I think that would be the best-case scenario as to property he’s trying to sell quickly,” Freedman said of selling Mar-a-Lago. “I would encourage that.”

On X, users are fuming at the blatant “hypocrisy.”

“How is this legal?” one user asked. “They’re robbing him in front of our eyes and bragging about it? Why do democrats so desperately want a civil war?”

One user summed it up this way: “Let me get this straight! The property Trump used to commit bank fraud by valuing it at $150 million when, according to Letitia James and Judge Engoron, it was only worth $18 million … can be sold for $240 million to help pay the fine for fraudulently overvaluing the property?”

Yup. You gotta love liberal logic.

Melissa Fine
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