This fascinating topic is debated at the inaugural World Built Environment Forum in Washington DC. Two experts looked at the three conventional ways to appraise the property and also took guesses from the audience.
The highest guess from attendees at our recent World Built Environment Forum conference was $36.1 Billion. Due to legislation passed by Congress in 1935, the White House can be sold, to anyone. Two experts tackled this unique question. Barden Prisant with International Art Advisors from New York and Ann Gray FRICS from Gray Real Estate Advisors, who brings 25 years of experience in valuation.
Barden focused on the FF&E which includes precious art work, silver, swords from Ulysses S. Grant and George Washington, and other artifacts.
He considered an interesting angle, which could create a large amount of value, by deconstructing the house and selling it piece by piece to the public. But if you were to just sell the house goods without deconstructing it, a figure of about $160 Million could be an appropriate plug number.
Ann looked at the three conventional ways to appraise a property using the Cost, Income and Sales approach.
Of the three scenarios:
- Income Approach - came in at $670 million, and was derived from all rooms being rented at the high price tag of what Steve Jobs paid for the Lincoln Room, $150K per night at 82% occupancy. But given the demand is so unknown, perhaps the cost approach should carry more weight.
- Cost Approach - the Smithsonian Museum currently under construction is being built for $1428/sqft. In that scenario the building value comes in at approximately $80 million. A value of $0 was assigned to the land, due to the lack of zoning, enormous push back, and complications one would have in order to develop the property, given it currently has no zoning designation.
- Sales Approach – The famed Mar A Largo Hotel in Palm Beach was purchased by Donald Trump in the mid 1980’s for $10 million. Another comparable was a 33K sqft house near the D.C. market. These two comps brought a value of $80-100 million.
So what is the White House worth? Find out at the end of the video
About the World Built Environment Forum (WBEF)
This report was written by Tom Waldron
The World Built Environment Forum demonstrates responsible leadership for the built environment and is an annual, global event which takes place on a different continent each year.
This forum creates and sets the standard for dialogue and collaboration among professionals, clients, policy makers and regulators with the aim of driving up standards so that our profession and our industry show responsible leadership in enabling sustainable growth.
Find out more about the WBEF, access videos from the event and get details of upcoming events
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