Yahoo Finance Bethenny Frankel on real estate: ‘Don’t worry about taking your losses on a sell’
Entrepreneur Bethenny Frankel is bullish on the housing market, urging people to buy.
“The best piece of real estate advice I’ve ever received is, don’t worry about taking your losses on a sell. Worry about getting a really great deal on the buy, and in this market right now, that’s really the best thing,” Bethenny Frankel, CEO and founder of Skinnygirl, told Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous at the All Markets Summit. She even recommended selling a property at a loss to free up money for a great deal.
Frankel owns about $10 million in real estate, including a $4 million Soho condo at 22 Mercer Street in New York City and two houses in the Hamptons, according to reports.
“You can get good deals now. So if you can get rid of what you have and invest in something bigger and better, it’s a great time to buy,” said Frankel.
That’s a piece of advice she seems to be taking. She listed her Soho apartment in February 2017 for $5.35 million. But after two years on the market last week she reduced the asking price to just under $4 million — a $205,000 loss from what she paid for the property in 2014, according to Zillow.
She also listed one of her Hamptons homes at 2623 Montauk Highway in Bridgehampton, for just shy of $3 million in July 2018. And on October 3, she reduced the asking price to $2.6 million, but still almost $1 million more than its 2006 purchase price, according to Zillow. In 2016, Frankel sold her Tribeca condo at 195 Hudson Street for $7 million, a $2 million profit from when she purchased it in 2011.
“You could probably buy, right now, a $6 million apartment for $3 million,” she said.
That may be the case in markets like New York City, where the housing market has cooled in favor of buyers, especially when it comes to higher end properties. According to Brown Harris Stevens’ quarterly survey of New York City real estate, sellers offered their biggest price discounts in nearly a decade during the second quarter.
For Frankel, overcoming obstacles — like selling her real estate at a loss — is what made her a multi-millionaire.
“I’m just a person who executes and pushes through, and if I hit a door, I go through the window,” she said.
Sarah Paynter is a reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @sarahapaynter
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