A PRINCE-LY MANOR
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As Chuck Prince, the ordinary man, is learning – what goes around, comes around.
The one-time chief of Citigroup – who helped create the junk mortgage crisis that ultimately cost him his job – is now a housing victim like lesser folk because he can’t find a buyer for his posh Greenwich, Conn., mansion.
Although he slashed $300,000 off the price to $5.85 million, Prince still can’t find any takers for the five-bedroom home, a replica of a grand, 1920s-styled Tudor mansion, according to Bloomberg.
The house, built in 1987 on 2.3 manicured acres and featuring a swimming pool, has been on the block for six months.
Real estate agents say Prince might have to wait as long as a year for a buyer, since houses in the gilded suburb of Wall Street titans just aren’t selling despite markdowns and a slide of 8.1 percent in just three months to a median price of $1.98 million.
The 58-year-old Prince paid $4.48 million for the sprawling house five years ago, just as he was taking over the top job at Citigroup. Befitting his new status, the house could handle dinner parties for 40.
But in January – two months after he was fired for his role in the housing recession wipeout – Prince put his home on the block.
Locals say that when big shots lose their jobs, they often feel like outcasts in the rarified world of Greenwich’s power circles, and tend to make hasty exits.
In Prince’s case, he packed up and left three months ago to buy a $3.3 million home in North Palm Beach, Fla., which he could apparently afford with his $29.5 million severance package.
Last year, 113 Greenwich homes in the $5 million or higher range found buyers. But this year, barely two dozen of the $5 million-plus houses have sold, said Bloomberg.