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From classic muscle cars to high-end European rides, Grammy-winning rapper 2 Chainz is no stranger to big splurges.

But beyond the flashy impulse purchases, he’s also been making some smart money moves behind the scenes.

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In a recent episode of the Club Shay Shay podcast, host and Super Bowl champion Shannon Sharpe asked 2 Chainz to name some of his wildest purchases.

“I think I bought a [Rolls Royce] Phantom and a Maybach,” 2 Chainz told Sharpe.

“Damn, that is $800,000!” replied Sharpe, stunned by the sheer size of the purchase.

But 2 Chainz insists there’s a method to the madness: “Every time I do something stupid, I try to balance it out,” he said.

What does he use to balance it out? Real estate.

“As soon as I go buy a couple of chains, I would hit the girl that’s handling my real estate business and tell her, ‘Can you send me some properties to look at?’” he explained.

The veteran rapper noted that artists who suddenly come into wealth often spend freely on “stupid stuff” — from cars to jewelry. But eventually, the conversation would shift to passive income and investments.

For 2 Chainz, real estate is a no-brainer — having spent hours in the studio just scrolling through property listings.

“I’m a property hoarder,” he told Sharpe. “I be getting penalized, but it's my dirt and I know they don't make no more dirt.”

As 2 Chainz points out, one of the core truths about real estate is just how scarce it can be.

You can’t create land out of thin air — and buildable land is even harder to come by.

Even Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged at a press conference last year that the real problem behind America’s housing crisis is simple: “We have had, and are on track to continue to have, not enough housing.”

An analysis by Zillow published in June 2024 estimated the U.S. housing shortage to be 4.5 million homes.

That supply-demand imbalance may help explain why home prices continue to climb. Over the past five years, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index has surged by more than 50%.