Brief - The Hustle

50 Cent’s real-estate roller coaster shows the massive costs of mansion ownership

Written by Conor Grant | Jun 30, 2020 10:29:20 AM

Rapper Curtis James Jackson III — AKA 50 Cent — recently sold the Connecticut mega-mansion he’s been trying to flip for 12 years for $2.9m — $1.2m less than he paid for it.

Why did Fitty sell at such a steep discount? Well, he was paying $70k every month just to take care of the place.

A 50 Cent mansion… at an 84% discount

Jackson bought a 52-room palace in Farmington, CT, from Mike Tyson for $4.1m in 2003 — the same year Get Rich or Die Tryin’ came out. 

The house was a humble rap mogul’s crib: 2 pools, indoor and outdoor basketball courts, a nightclub, a gym, home theater, game room, recording studio — and a giant mural of Fitty pointing a gun.

But 50 Cent quickly lost interest: When the house was robbed in 2017, The Wall Street Journal reports, Jackson said, “What my house got robbed, I thought I sold that MF. LOL.”

But after years of losing money on the house, Jackson finally sold his neglected mansion.

Luxury landscaping costs a LOT

Mansions aren’t just expensive to buy, they’re expensive to maintain: 50 Cent’s 2015 bankruptcy papers revealed the cost of maintaining the Connecticut mansion to be $70k/month.

Why does it cost so much to maintain a mega-mansion? In addition to predictable costs like taxes and utilities, Fitty also had to pay Connecticut’s “mansion tax.”

But, as Business Insider reports, the “invisible costs” of mansion ownership include elaborate home security systems, smart-home systems (whose updates can cost $20k), and landscaping costs that can hit 6 figures annually.