The True Value Of The Trump Property Portfolio
The price tag of $18 million placed on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago in that recent contrived court case initiated by a deranged, corrupt attorney general and presided over by an equally corrupt judge raised more than an eyebrow or two. It also raised the question of how much this exotic estate is actually worth.
The short answer is that like any other chattel or service in this world, a property is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. There is a caveat here, what is offered for sale must be the real thing. An obvious example is a watch or any piece of jewellery. Say a high value watch is offered for sale at $10,000; for a commercial rather than a private transaction there will obviously be a substantial mark up, even for a secondhand watch. If though the buyer and seller agree on the price, then that is the value of said watch. What though if rather than a genuine Rolex it is a counterfeit or even a legal replica?
If a seller deceives a buyer wilfully, that is a clear case of fraud. Likewise a buyer may deceive a seller, in this particular hypothetical case by claiming the watch isn’t genuine and offering a substantially lower price.
The Trump case doesn’t fall into either of these categories. If Donald Trump and/or his company over-valued his assets, the banks were able to make their own judgments, as in fact they did, indeed, they would have been criminally irresponsible not to, because like other public companies, banks have a duty to their shareholders.
The value of anything is relative, and sometimes transient. A major supermarket will typically stock tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of perishable products. How much will all those gallons of milk be worth next week?
A ticket for a concert or sporting event may be worth several hundred dollars a week prior to the event. How much will it be worth the following day?
Anyone who has ever sold or tried to sell collectables on eBay will realise that it is always a buyer’s market, even for the autograph of a former President.