His Airness just wants some fairness.
Michael Jordan’s swanky, vainglorious mansion in a Chicago suburb is still for sale after 12 years on the market, and he is reportedly swatting aside any talk of lowering the asking price, which has dropped to the bargain-basement level of $14.8 million US.
That is quite a dip from the original demand of $29 million in 2012, when the seven-acre property in Highland Park, Ill., was put up for sale. In case you are curious, that means the former Bulls star’s mega-mansion has been on the market for almost 2,500 days.
Expect the calendar to keep flipping unless someone coughs up the requisite cash, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“I think most of the people would have gotten anxious at some point and said, ‘You know, I think I’ll just reduce it and reduce it and reduce it,’” real estate agent Katherine Malkin told the Journal, via the New York Post.
To prove a point, the six-time NBA champion has eaten the more than $1 million in property taxes, invested in a new roof and famously pulled out of a 2013 auction because he wasn’t willing to sell the house for less than what it’s worth, according to the Journal.
“Why? Because he can,” Malkin said of Jordan, whose kids reportedly still visit the 56,000-square-foot property that boasts annual property taxes of about (US)$148,000.
Jordan, who recently sold his majority stake in the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets and is worth an estimated $3.2 billion, according to Forbes, bought the property in 1991 and built the mansion about three years later with his then-wife Juanita, the Post reported. He kept the property when they divorced in 2006.
Among the Jordan-centric highlights are a custom gate featuring his signature No. 23, outdoor putting greens with his trademark Nike Jumpman logo on the flags and a home theatre that displays his likeness on the marquee, according to the Post.
For hoops fans, there’s a full-size basketball court with the G.O.A.T.’s name and those of his children — Marcus, Jeffrey and Jasmine — plus a locker-room, trophy room, cigar-friendly poker suite, built-in aquarium and doors from Hugh Hefner’s original Playboy Mansion.
His real estate team considers the custom MJ finishes part of the selling point, with Malkin telling the Journal, “We haven’t really talked about that (de-Jordaning the estate) because it’s part of the draw. We don’t look at that as being a hindrance.”
But finding the right buyer has been no slam dunk, the Post reported, with agents resorting to marketing blitzes in English and Mandarin as Jordan still reportedly has “massive popularity” in China. Real estate agent Kofi Nartey even upped the ante by offering prospective buyers a complete collection of Air Jordan sneakers.
“The person who buys the home is not buying it just to have a big house, but is buying it really for bragging rights and for the legacy that Michael Jordan built with the property,” Nartey told the Journal.
No Bull-oney.