For rent at $195,000 a month, Trump house by Mar-a-Lago leads lease listings in Palm Beach

Quick! Who’s the most famous landlord with a rental home in Palm Beach?

Ding-ding-ding for you if you answered former President Donald Trump, who also happens to be the island’s most famous resident.

Trump’s beachfront house — next door to his Mar-a-Lago Club — is again for rent. Furnished, the two-story home is available on an annual lease at $195,000 a month. That works out to a cool $2.34 million a year, for those doing the math.

And summer may be the time anyone shopping for a Palm Beach rental to sign the lease for it. Including the Trump property, 52 single-family rental houses were marketed this week in the Palm Beach Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service. The rental offerings also included two townhomes and 82 condominiums and cooperative apartments.

The island’s rental market has cooled considerably since the summer after the start of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, when people flocking to Palm Beach were snapping up anything — and everything — available for lease. The situation today has returned to a far more typical level, real estate observers say.

And mid-summer is traditionally the time when the market begins heating up for those planning to lease a Palm Beach home for the coming season, especially for rentals during the prime winter months between Christmas and the end of March.

And as lots of real estate pros know, rentals can lead to sales. Many is the renter who ends up buying a home in Palm Beach after shopping the season while staying at a leased property.

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Annual leases also are available as an option for those who may not be ready invest in a Palm Beach property but want the convenience of having a home available to them whenever they or their guests might need it.

But even annual leases may not be set in stone in the world of Palm Beach real estate. Some properties advertised only for a yearly rental may be negotiated to rent for shorter periods — say four to nine months — at a higher monthly rate.

The Trump house at 1125 S. Ocean Blvd. has been advertised for rent before but has been vacant since mid-April, the MLS shows.  Agent Margit Brandt of Premier Estate Properties is the listing agent but declined to comment about the property.

Known as “The Beach House,” the West Indies-style residence has 10,455 square feet of living space, inside and out. It was built in 1956 on a lot that faces about 200 feet of beachfront.

And there would likely be an unusual perk for the renter, according to the listing. The house is marketed with access to the Mar-a-Lago Beach Club next door — although not to the main club property across South Ocean Boulevard.

The Trump house is the most expensive rental offering in the single-family category of the MLS.

But it’s in some pricey company.

Three other properties are listed for rent at $100,000 a month or more, but only one of those is on the ocean. That would be the second-most expensive rental property, a two-story, five-bedroom house at 143 E. Inlet Drive available for seasonal lease — October through May — at $165,000 a month or for the off season at $125,000 a month.

The furnished house is near the inlet at the northern tip of the island and available through agents Cristina Condon and Kevin Condon of Sotheby’s International Realty.

The house on East Inlet Drive was rented for several consecutive months last season but is fully available now, said Kevin Condon.

“Ideally, I’d like to see at least a six-month (seasonal) lease,” Condon said, although his client might entertain a shorter seasonal lease.

Cristine Condon also represents the third-most expensive single-family rental listing, a town landmark. That eight-bedroom house, at 110 Clarke Ave., is the second one west of Midtown Beach and is advertised, furnished, for an annual term at $125,000 a month in the MLS.

Rounding out the top-dollar quartet of rentals is another landmarked house at 12 Lagomar Road with five bedrooms on a dry lot near the lakefront. With water views from the top floor, the furnished residence is offered seasonally at $125,000 per month for a six-month minimum between November and April; or at an annual rate of $100,000 per month between May and October. Corcoran Group agents Paulette Koch and Dana Koch hold the listing.

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Not every single-family Palm Beach property leases for such deep-wallet prices, of course. At the bottom of the MLS’s single-family price range are three homes offered at $10,000 a month, although the monthly availability varies.

Those planning to rent a condo or co-op will find the MLS led by a $38,000-a-month oceanfront listing in Midtown for unit No. 2B in the Leverett House at 340 S. Ocean Blvd. But as of now, the two-bedroom, furnished condo is available only from January through March on a seasonal rental, according to the listing held by Sotheby’s International Realty agent Tina Roberts, who also goes by the name Christine Gibbons.

And the least-expensive Palm Beach apartment for rent in the MLS? That’s a two-bedroom unit listed at $3,000 a month on an annual basis — No. 3170 at 2840 S. Ocean Blvd. on the South End. Agent Xiomara Ordonez of Illustrated Properties is representing that furnished listing.

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Darrell Hofheinz is a USA TODAY Network of Florida journalist who writes about Palm Beach real estate in his weekly “Beyond the Hedges” column. He welcomes tips about real estate news on the island. Email dhofheinz@pbdailynews.com, call 561-820-3831 or tweet @PBDN_Hofheinz.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Trump home by Mar-a-Lago is Palm Beach's priciest rental at $2.3M/year