Mar-a-Lago Neighborhood's Value is Set to Soar

Home prices in Palm Beach, home to Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, have jumped four times more than in the rest of Florida, according to recent data. And experts told Newsweek they expect to see the rises continue through 2024, as wealthy buyers continue to find the area appealing.

Statewide prices in Florida increased 4.5 percent year-on-year to January, reaching a median of $404,000. Palm Beach properties climbed by 18.8 percent to a median of $1.9 million, according to Redfin.

Dorothy Jacks, elected property appraiser of Palm Beach County, said that home values in the county have been appreciating "by over 10 percent a year" for the last three years.

In the town of Palm Beach—which counts about 9,000 parcels, or portions of land up for sale, lease or development—the rate was even higher, Jacks said, climbing as much as "between 15 and 20 percent a year for the last two to three years.

That's because there's been "a great deal of renovation and revitalization of older properties [in Palm Beach] and there's also a number of new properties being built on existing land where they tore a house down and built a much bigger one," Jacks told Newsweek.

In the case of some individual properties, Jacks said, home values have risen by as much as 25 to 30 percent a year.

"Lots of people are moving to our area. We had a massive influx of people during COVID-19, certainly because we're a year-round outdoor community and people were able to work from home more," she said.

While sales have dropped slightly because of rising interest rates in Palm Beach County, Jacks said "properties have not declined in value. They just may not be going up quite as much as they've gone up in the last 2 to 3 years."

"We're kind of a quarter of the way through 2024, and we're not really seeing any kind of slowdown occurring in the town of Palm Beach, we're still seeing sales that are indicating that values are still going to rise significantly this year—maybe not quite as much as the last two years, but probably close to it," Jacks said.

Matthew Walsh, Moody's Analytics housing economist, told Newsweek that the company expects "low affordability and lean supply" to remain the dominant forces in Florida's housing market over 2024, "slowly restoring the balance between median house prices and median incomes," but he thinks that Palm Beach will "fare a bit better" than the rest of the state.

"While slowing from its frenzied post-pandemic pace, net migration will continue to support the local housing market. Palm Beach remains an attractive destination for many, especially retirees, due to its relative affordability compared to other major feeder markets, including the New York City metro area," he said.

Trump's Mar-a-Lago is unlikely to appreciate similarly to other residential properties in Palm Beach due to its status as a club, according to the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser's Office. The office told Newsweek that it uses the income approach to value the Mar-a-Lago property because it is deed-restricted as a private club.

The deed of development rights recorded in 2002 prevents a property from being redeveloped or used for any purpose other than a club. Mar-a-Lago is one of nine deed-restricted clubs in Palm Beach County, and all are valued by the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser's Office in the same manner.

"The income approach to valuation capitalizes the net operating income that private clubs could generate. This means that the value of the property is determined based on the amount of income that it generates as a club," the office said, rather than home values in the area.

John Pinson, of the Palm Beach Board of Realtors, told Newsweek that if it was on the open market, Mar-a-Lago "would command a huge price, much more than the judge in New York ruled."

Judge Arthur Engoron, who was overseeing the New York Attorney General Letitia James' civil fraud case against Trump, found that the former president wildly exaggerated the value of Mar-a-Lago by claiming it was worth up to $1 billion when, according to the Palm Beach County tax appraiser's valuations, its value was between $18 million and $37 million.

A rise in the value of Mar-a-Lago could potentially help Trump pay the huge fines he's currently facing as a result of his many legal troubles, should he decide to sell—a decision that has never been on the Trump's family horizon so far.

Last month, the former president was ordered by Engoron to pay $355 million plus interest in penalties for lying about his wealth, inflating the value of his assets to get more favorable terms from banks and insurers. The sum piled up to another fine worth $83.3 million that Trump was ordered to pay in Jean. E. Carroll's defamation case.

Trump is currently facing 91 felony counts in four different criminal trials. The former president, who's currently the frontrunner of the Republican presidential primary, maintained his innocence in all cases, including the New York civil fraud trial.

Update, 3/5/2024 6:50 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include details on how the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser's Office calculates the value of properties such as Mar-a-Lago. The headline was also updated.