Donald Trump says father gave him 'small loan' of $1m

If Donald Trump wants to win over the average American voter, he may need to rethink his definition of what a "small loan" is.

The billionaire presidential candidate was arguing that he has not had an easy life at an event in New Hampshire on Monday when he described how he got started in business.

"It has not been easy for me, it has not been easy for me," he said.

"And you know I started off in Brooklyn, my father gave me a small loan of a million dollars.

"I came into Manhattan and I had to pay him back, and I had to pay him back with interest."

While a million dollars may have been small change for his father Fred in 1968, it would have been enough to buy him 40 houses by the US median price.

Adjusted for inflation, that million dollars would be equivalent to $9.3 million Australian dollars now.

When pressed by NBC's Matt Lauer on whether getting a million-dollar loan is easy, Trump conceded the point.

"You're right, but a million dollars isn't very much compared to what I've built," he said.

"I mean, I've built one of the great companies, but it's always been, you know, you can't do this, you can't do that."

The remarks quickly drew scorn on Twitter.

Trump took over his father's property empire in 1974, which accounted for $150 million worth of New York property at the time.

He is currently leading in Republican primary polls nationwide but in recent days has been overtaken in the first state of Iowa by Ben Carson.

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