In the quiet, tree-lined Jamaica Estates neighborhood of Queens, real estate developer Tommy Lin is selling a Tudor-style home for $2.3 million. This is the house where Trump lived from birth until he was four years old.
The five-bedroom home, built in 1940 by Trump’s father, real estate developer Fred Trump, was the family’s first residence in the neighborhood before they moved to a larger nearby house.
After years of neglect, including burst pipes and moldy interiors, the house was sold in February for $835,000 to Lin, who then renovated it over eight months.
“The house had no electricity or running water, it was uninhabitable,” Lin said. Almost everything inside has now been restored. He emphasized that he purchased the home not for political reasons but because of its historical value and location. Jamaica Estates is one of Queens’ oldest and most expensive neighborhoods, with homes often selling for over $3 million, and properties under $1 million increasingly rare.
This isn’t the first time a Trump family property has drawn attention. On the night of the 2016 election, investor Michael Davis in Manhattan purchased the house for $1.39 million, anticipating that its value would rise if Trump won. On the day Trump was inaugurated in 2017, Davis sold it to a Chinese buyer for $2.14 million.
Davis later rented the house for $4,000 per month, converting it into an Airbnb decorated with Trump-themed memorabilia. The only book in the house was Trump’s Art of the Deal, and a sign was hung outside one of the bedrooms.
The Airbnb remained popular until Oxfam America rented it to raise awareness of the refugee crisis, following Trump’s 2017 travel ban on citizens from six Muslim-majority countries.
Afterwards, the house was unused and deteriorated, and by the time Lin bought it in February, it was home to 20–30 feral cats.
Lin invested about $500,000 in renovations. The restored house now offers roughly 2,300 sq ft of living space across four floors, plus about 1,000 sq ft in the basement.
The Trump Organization has not commented on the listing of the home for $2.3 million.