Vanilla Ice, the one-hit wonder rapper from the 1990s, might have faded from the limelight—but he’s quietly become a multi-hit real estate phenom.
When his rapping career ended, the performer, whose real name is Robert Matthew Van Winkle, turned to buying and fixing up properties to flip.
It wouldn’t have been so much of a shocker if the one-time rapper, who met with early success, had ended up a career failure after his music moment died. Instead, he changed his tune.According to Van Winkle, it all started in 1992, when Hurricane Andrew destroyed his Florida home. He decided to fix it up himself and sold it. He was on his way to a new money-making plan; and to hone his skills, he even went to design school.
He told Steve-O on his podcast, Steve-O’s Wild Ride, that he started “buying homes all over the country.” He never lived in them but “made millions” when he decided to sell them off. “I bought a bunch, and I never used them,” Van Winkle revealed to Steve-O. “I thought I’d use them while I was there. I don’t want to stay in hotels, it gets crazy. So, I bought all these homes, and then I said, ‘S—.’ I went on three years. I never saw them. I thought I’d lost money on them. I thought, ‘F—, I just blew a lot of money,’ and I go, ‘Let’s just sell them. Sell them all.’ And I sold them all.”
Turns out, the homes sold quickly, and Van Winkle “made millions for doing nothing,” he told Steve-O. “I didn’t even change the carpet or do—there were probably cobwebs in there. Nobody rented them out. They just sat there, and I go, ‘Holy s—, let’s go buy a bunch more of them.’ I was buying homes all over the place and still am.”
The 56-year-old’s talents as a real estate investor and contractor were showcased on his reality TV show, “The Vanilla Ice Project,” which has 180 episodes and 13 seasons. He explained to Steve-O that he buys “distressed houses” that are off-market listings, picking them up for “pennies on the dollar.”
Van Winkle’s home-flipping work must be paying off, because according to Celebrity Net Worth, he’s worth about $20 million.
Here are just some of Vanilla Ice’s properties: Read More
Pic source : New York times
