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TR U M P STR A TEGI ES FO R R E A L ESTA TE

successful business that was ultimately sold for a profit of millions of
dollars. Don’t think you can do everything yourself. Surround your-
self with professionals and you’ll save yourself aggravation and even
money.

INVESTING CASE STUDY

VILLA TRUMP BRAZIL
Trump has earned such a reputation for hiring top people, and creat-
ing quality and luxury in whatever he does, that he can now license
his brand and property design and management expertise to other
real estate investors. They realize the value of having a top name (in
this case, Trump) associated with their development. They appreciate
the marketing power it gives them. (I’ll describe later in the chapter
how small investors can use the same principle when hiring archi-
tects, builders, and designers.) One example of this is a project near
Sao Paulo, called Villa Trump Brazil. For Trump to permit his name to
be connected with this project, the land owners paid him $1 million
cash up front, plus a share of the profits on anything over $45 million
in sales. They intend to sell 400 building lots at $300,000 each.
That’s $120 million in sales right there. Except for supervision and
guidance,Trump’s input is minimal with no dollars in but he’ll get lots
of dollars out. His major contribution is his name coupled with his ex-
pertise in development supervision. It will inevitably turn out to be a
beautiful, luxurious first-class development. It’s a huge project on
1659 acres, including a Jack Nicklaus signature golf course and golf
academy, with a nine-hole executive course for the academy. It will
feature a high-quality boutique hotel, situated around the 18-hole golf
course along with 18 mansions, worth between $4 and $10 million.
Trump wouldn’t ordinarily go out and build a project in Sao Paulo,
Brazil. However, local real estate developers knew that there were
many wealthy Brazilians who would pay more for the quality and lux-

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