Paul Manafort and 29 Howard Street (Credit: Getty Images)
Federal authorities have put Paul Manafort’s Soho loft up for sale with an asking price of more than $3 million.
The fourth-floor loft at 29 Howard street is part of a $22 million real estate portfolio that the federal government seized as part of a deal that President Trump’s former campaign chairman cut when he pleaded guilty to a pair of conspiracy charges last year.
The U.S. Marshal service put the Soho condominium up for sale with an asking price of $3.66 million, the New York Post reported. According to testimony from Manafort’s federal trial, the campaign chief told his daughter and son in law to pretend they had been living in the condo, when in reality it was being rented out on Airbnb.
Halstead agent Ari Harkov told the Post that, based on photos from the condo’s listing, the $3.66 million price tag may be more than buyers are willing to pay.
He said the unit’s dropped ceilings and “suburban”-looking kitchen don’t fit the taste of Manhattan loft buyers.
“It’s fine, it’s livable, but it probably needs some work,” Harkov told the publication.
The Soho condo is part of a portfolio feds seized including a Carroll Gardens brownstone at 377 Union Street that could sell for $3.7 million, an apartment at Trump tower valued at an estimated $2.4 million and a loft near the border of Chinatown and Little Italy at 123 Baxter Street that could go for $3.8 million.
Halstead’s Harkov, who has sold units at the Baxter Street building, said that the Manafort name may turn buyers away. He pointed to shoppers who said they didn’t want to buy a Williamsburg property owned by Jared Kushner because they didn’t want to put money into his family’s pocket.
“I think there are buyers who wouldn’t buy it or would be less interested because of it,” he said.
Manafort was sentenced in March to 73 months in prison – a term he could serve out in federal prison in Pennsylvania or the jail complex on Rikers Island. [NYP] – Rich Bockmann