“I still do not want to sell,” he said. “But I will.”

Last month, Mr. Milani, 57, placed his house, in the North Druid Hills neighborhood, a few miles northeast of downtown, on sale for $9.88 million.

A prominent builder of McMansions in a city that once could barely consume enough of them, Mr. Milani has fallen on financial hard times as the demand for real estate has waned.

Twice he has narrowly avoided foreclosure on his home. Although he recently sold five houses, he is losing money on five other unsold ones and must repay multiple loans.

The notion of someone selling a replica of the presidential mansion  possibly to a buyer in Dubai  is both humorous and painful to Atlantans, who are enduring one of the country’s highest foreclosure rates, which they attribute, in part, to policies that come from the real White House. The forced sale of one of the city’s most expensive homes, owned by someone who made his fortune in homebuilding, makes clear the widespread nature of the real estate collapse.

“The housing crisis has affected people at all income levels,” said Mary Norwood, a member of the Atlanta City Council. “This has been devastating to the whole economy.”