The Russians are coming.
As many of America’s wealthy are roiled by the credit crisis and general financial gloom, a growing number of rich Russians are house-shopping — and buying — in costly U.S. enclaves.
Fertilizer mogul Dmitry Rybolovlev is set to pay nearly $100 million to Donald Trump for an oceanfront mansion in Palm Beach, Fla., say people familiar with the deal reached in May. Last year, Oleg Baibakov, president of GSC City, a Moscow construction-management and consulting firm, bought a condo at Manhattan’s Time Warner Center for $13.5 million, according to public records.
And in Snowmass, Colo., perhaps the most famous Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich, paid $36.4 million in April for a 200-acre ranch. The property’s massive, split-level house is five minutes away from an $11.8 million ski-in, ski-out house that Mr. Abramovich, owner of England’s Chelsea soccer team, purchased two months earlier, records show.