Billionaire real estate CEO Steve Roth, former chairman of Vornado Realty Trust paid a hefty $9.4 million for the property according to the Wall Street Journal … and a thousand other news sites. Roth, a 2007 recipient of Institutional Investor magazines’ top CEO in the REIT industry, can buy whatever he wants. He’s a billionaire by the way.
The Madoffs purchased the land, minus some waterfront acreage, for $250,000 in the early 1980s. They later built the home and then added about 0.1 acre of waterfront for $20,000. Two other Madoff properties seized by federal authorities remain on the market: a duplex penthouse on Manhattan's Upper East Side, listed at $9.9 million, and a Palm Beach mansion, for $8.5 million.
The listing agents were Joan Hegner and Raymond Hegner of Corcoran Group. Ed Petrie of Sotheby's International Realty's East Hampton brokerage represented Mr. Roth.
This leads us to think, how come it’s a big deal for everyone? It’s simple. People would be so interested in knowing who were, are, and will be affiliated to Bernie Madoff. And as a real estate businessman, you’ve got to give Roth the credit for risking his name in Madoff’s former assets.
Take for example Michael Tadin, who’s controversial acquisition of a $4.5 million property last year sparked outrage from certain groups in Chicago when he won the bidding. Apparently Tadin is a childhood friend of Mayor Richard Daley. A year after the controversy, we’ve not heard much about this issue anymore. So we’re expecting the same thing for Roth.
But a few others are contending that this is just a mere publicity stunt of Roth. He’s the shrewd type who won’t settle for anything less than what he has in mind. Some however, believe that it was in his best interest to have entered the deal.
Good or bad - publicity is still publicity. In this case, Roth got the house , he got the exposure, and he got America talking about him.
Author Resource:-
Andy Denton is the COO of www.Realty.com. Realty.com is a real estate search portal, dedicated to connecting home buyers and sellers to trusting real estate services. Follow the Realty.com blog for up to date housing news and trends. And monitor local mortgage rates at RealtyGadget.com.
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