I’VE SPENT 50 YEARS as a lawyer, business advisor, and deal negotiator for real estate tycoons at the top of the world’s toughest real estate market—New York City.
I’ve represented or negotiated with great real estate minds like Harry Helmsley, Sam LeFrak, Bill Zeckendorf, and Donald Trump. It’s been my good fortune to spend many of the best years of my career as Donald’s right-hand man.
These days most people know me best from the TV show, The Apprentice, where Carolyn Kepcher and I help Donald make tough decisions about whom to fire and whom to keep.
The show has been fun, but most of my work for Donald over the past 25 years has been in the world of real estate.
I have been an advisor, negotiator, and lawyer on many of his biggest and most successful real estate investments, including the acquisition and renovation of the GM building,
Trump Tower on 5th Avenue, the Grand Hyatt Hotel, and my personal favorite, 40 Wall Street.
Throughout my career, I have had the opportunity to acquire a great deal of knowledge and experience in real estate investing, which I hope to pass on to you in this book.
For example, during a 10-year period from 1956 to 1966 when Sol Goldman and Alex DiLorenzo Jr. became two of the biggest property owners in New York, I personally bought 702 individual properties on their behalf.
I have been intimately involved in many of New York City’s most spectacular projects, such as the Chrysler Building and the St. Regis Hotel, which I helped one of my clients buy. I’ve also had the opportunity to watch Donald Trump in action as he made some of the greatest real estate investments in history.
This book explains the strategies Donald Trump used to make his real estate fortune, and how small investors can apply them to in- vestments of any size, right down to a one-family rental property.
I describe how Trump implements some of his signature strategies such as creating luxury, perceived value, exclusivity, and attention to detail, which all come together to maximize the value of his investments. (This is why his properties earn far more money, square foot for square foot, than his competitors’.)
A number of the chapters focus on a particular real estate investment that I was directly involved in negotiating or advising Trump on. Using this example, I draw out the lessons and explain how the same strategies that Trump used to make huge profits on his deals can work for you the small investor. Although Trump does things on a grand scale and his target market is usually an elite, luxury customer, Trump’s basic real estate strategies will be of interest to:
• Anyone who is interested in owning or developing real estate
• Anyone unsure of how to negotiate a real estate transaction
• Anyone who is in real estate on a small scale but would like to do more
• Anyone interested in learning how Donald Trump doe his magic
This is the first book on Trump’s strategies for the real estate investor. Although it has a lot of nuts-and-bolts guidance and investing principles, the book alone will not make you a great investor. As I tell the students who take my negotiation course at New York University, “There’s no way in 15 hours that I can make you an excellent negotiator.
It is impossible! All I want to do is open your mind to the possibilities and the power of negotiating, and some basic techniques. Then, when you run into a specific situation you can go back to your notes, and say, how did George handle this?
Or, what did he suggest?” You already have some ideas about real estate, but I’ve learned many things in my 25 years working with Trump and 50 years in the real estate business, that I’d like to pass along to you.
If I am successful, this book will help you negotiate far better deals, arrange better financing, make better investments, and earn significantly more money in real estate.
I recall the day I first met Donald Trump in 1974. He entered my office at the law firm of Dreyer and Traub beaming with enthusiasm about a project he wanted to do with the old Commodore Hotel on 42d Street in New York City.
He was just 27 years old at the time, and I was a senior partner known for completing complex deals, but I agreed to see him out of courtesy because I represented his father, Fred Trump. Fred had spoken enthusiastically about Donald’s promise as a future star in the real estate world.
Donald laid out his incredibly complex plan for buying the huge, dumpy, rundown hotel next to Grand Central Station and turning it into a first-class, state-of-the-art business hotel.
I told him it was a brilliant idea, but there was no way it would ever work, given the number of powerful people and governmental agencies he would have to convince to grant him major concessions.
Nevertheless, if he was willing to pay the legal fees, I was willing to help him take a shot at it. We spent the next two years negotiating with railroad executives, city and state officials, lenders, and Hyatt executives making the deal happen.
During those tumultuous two years, Donald and I developed a great working relationship and mutual respect.
When he miraculously pulled off the deal, I was so sure he would be a huge success in real estate that I became his closest advisor and lawyer.
