What's going on with Michael Jordan's 'cursed' mansion?
Michael Jordan always wins. Considered the best athlete of all time, his sporting legacy is legendary – and on a business level he is not far behind either.
The Jordan Brand is a benchmark of sports businesses and, according to Forbes, Michael Jordan has a net worth of more than $2 billion. There are some issues with his property portfolio though – he has been trying to sell a mansion since 2012!
Allergic to defeat, the inability to sell what is already known as Michael Jordan's 'Cursed Mansion' can't be sitting well with him.
But why can't someone like Michael Jordan sell a luxurious mansion located in Highland Park, north of Chicago? Precisely because it is Michael Jordan's mansion, in the most literal sense of the word.
The NBA legend bought the house in 1991 and for four years customized it to his liking. Thus, in 1995, the mansion was ready to be inhabited and had 9 bedrooms, 15 bathrooms, a gym, a swimming pool, a party room, a movie theater, a bar, a lake, a minigolf, a tennis court and a garage for 15 cars.
The finishing touches come in the form of a basketball court with the Jordan logo, a main gate with the number 23 that he wore in the Chicago Bulls and an endless number of personalized details that seem to be the reason that has turned back potential buyers for more than a decade.
"When you have such a specific and customized property, the sale becomes very difficult," Adam Rosenfeld, a real estate agent, told 'Marketwatch'.
As such, Jordan has been forced to lower his expectations for his property's market value. After unsuccessfully putting it up for auction in 2012, Air Jordan chose to put it up for sale in 2013 for $29 million US.
Over the years and due to the lack of buyers, the price has dropped to 21 million dollars, later to $16 million and, currently, it can be purchased for $14.8 million dollars, half of what in 2013.
But there is another added problem and that is privacy. As Katherine Malkin, the property's listing agent, pointed out to 'Tribune': "it's a beautiful property but a lot of people don't understand it because we can't have open houses, due to the owners' concern for privacy."
The complicated thing about the matter is that when possible buyers manage to access the mansion and appreciate the potential, not everyone has the economic capacity to undertake an operation of this caliber.
Thus, neither Magic Johnson, nor Patrick Ewing, nor Karl Malone, nor Charles Barkley, the rival who has managed to put Michael Jordan on the ropes for the longest time, is his own mansion. The cursed mansion.