While celebrities aren’t really real estate experts, most of them have made quite a fortune buying and selling properties.
However, it seems that rapper and businessman 50 Cent is having a harder time than most of his fellow celebrities. Proof of this is his 12-year ordeal trying to sell his Connecticut mansion.
Finally Sold
The good news is that 50 Cent can finally breathe a sigh of relief.
After over a decade in the market, the property has finally found a new owner in Casey Askar, a Florida businessman and chairman of Papa Romano’s Enterprises Inc. Askar bought the rapper’s Connecticut mansion for $2.9 million.
The bad news is that the property, which he bought from boxing champ Mike Tyson, was sold at a loss.
Initially acquired in 2003 for $4.1 million, 50 Cent planned on selling the mansion for $18.5 million when he first put it on the market back in 2007. Computing his losses, the musician wasn’t even able to make a profit out of his real estate transactions.
Still, 50 Cent is planning to donate proceeds of his mansion’s sale to the G-Unity Foundation Inc. The foundation is primarily concerned with providing grants to nonprofit organizations which serve underprivileged communities. It was founded by the rapper himself along with other musician friends in the early 2000s.
A Hard Sell
So, what went wrong?
According to experienced real estate appraisers, the mansion was just literally and figuratively too big for the market it’s in. With 19 bedrooms, 25 bathrooms and plenty of other amenities, the mega-mansion was way outside what was normal even in affluent Connecticut.
In fact, some sources say that it costs a whopping $70,000 a month just to maintain the sprawling estate.
This amount isn’t surprising considering that the property has a nightclub, a recording studio, a few game rooms, a home theater, an indoor pool and a couple of guesthouses in its compound.
No wonder that the rapper had to resort to some unconventional methods trying to drum up interest in his property. He reportedly even settled to have the place rented for a jaw-dropping $100,000 of rent a month.
Financial Troubles
However, his most recent loss is nothing compared to the troubles he’s been facing in the past years.
In 2015, the former hundred-millionaire had to file for a chapter 11 bankruptcy after raking in millions-worth of debt. He had just $20 million in assets compared to $36 million of debt at the time. The rapper was able to strike a five-year payment plan in the end.
However, some still speculate that the musician only filed for bankruptcy to avoid paying millions more than what he had to when he reached a settlement.
The rapper was worth $150 million at the height of his career. Now, he has an estimated net worth of $30 million.