Hedge funder John Paulson picks up $3M Olympic Tower pad

John Paulson and the Olympic Tower

Hedge fund manager John Paulson, whose lucrative but infamous bets against the subprime mortgage market in 2007 were at the center of this year’s Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit against Goldman Sachs, just dropped $2.85 million on a two-bedroom spread at 641 Fifth Avenue‘s Olympic Tower.

The condominium, which sits opposite Rockefeller Center at 51st Street, is decidedly more modest than the 28,000-square-foot mansion Paulson owns on the Upper East Side, but it’s unclear whether he actually plans to live there. His spokesperson declined to comment, as did listing agent Adam Soffer of Prudential Douglas Elliman. The deal-making Paulson & Co. head managed to bargain down the last asking price on the 1,797-square-foot, 26th-floor apartment from $3.15 million, according to records from Streeteasy.com.

On the deed filed with the city today, Paulson’s address is listed as the 9 East 86th Street home, which he bought for $14.7 million in 2004 and which once housed the Town Club, a now-defunct private social club.