Kanye West raided his pension pot and used high risk mortgage lenders to fund a $35 million Beverly Hills mansion – a property he does not intend to live in with wife Bianca Censori, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.
The rapper, 47, and his wife, 29, borrowed a total of $15.5 million, DailyMail.com can reveal – including a $2.7 million loan from a fitness entrepreneur.
The couple closed on the home with 11 bedrooms and 18 bathrooms in the uber-exclusive Beverly Park gated community last month. Neighbors include Adele and Justin Bieber.
But the property, jointly owned with his wife Bianca Censori through their firm Shore Drive Holdings LLC, was purchased purely for investment purposes and will likely be rented out.
Kanye had to use various lenders to finance the purchase, including a private money lender whose motto is ‘when the banks say no, private money is the only way to go’.
The deal also involved a firm that offers risky mortgages to people who wouldn’t qualify for one based on their credit history and score.
The largest loan amount was $12.5 million with Lone Oak Fund, and its investment arm Lone Oak Industries.
Lone Oak offers bridging loans for investment properties – a loan that provides immediate cash flow by using short-term financing until a person or company secures permanent funds.
Kanye signed an ‘assignment of rents and leases’ trust deed – which means that if he defaults on the mortgage, the lender can take profits from any future rent.
He’s also taken a further $3 million mortgage from two sources – RGGL LLC and pension firm Provident Trust Group.
RGGL is owned by Richard and Lucy Glassman, fitness entrepreneurs who live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They handed over $2,693,000 using their broker Private Money Solutions [PMS].
PMS is a ‘hard money lender’ meaning they have individuals willing to invest huge sums in a hurry as short-term loans secured by real property.
The Glassmans have no connection to Kanye personally, but Richard told DailyMail.com why he got involved in the deal where Kanye still had to front $19.5 million of his cash to fund the purchase – totaling 55 percent of the asking price.
‘When you have a total of 40 percent loan to value, it’s a good investment. This is the great creativity of the broker, it’s not the creativity of Kanye West, they do all the due diligence, I’m just the little guy,’ Richard explained.
‘To be totally honest, sometimes when investors look at celebrities, they don’t want to do it. Well, it definitely is, because if they don’t pay, we get a $35 million property.
‘But we would prefer they just pay, we don’t want to hurt nobody, we’re just investors. We want to get a return on our money.
The couple have bought numerous properties in California and New Mexico. Richard owned eight gyms in New Mexico as part of Planet Fitness’ franchise group before selling them off, according to public records.
He’s linked to other fitness firms with his wife Lucy.
The investor surmised that Kanye was able to raise the $19.5 million by using the capital he received when he recently sold his rotting Malibu home in September.
Kanye famously stripped it down to make a ‘bomb shelter’, which was sold for approximately $21 million — 60 percent less than the $57.3 million purchase price in 2021 after his divorce from Kim Kardashian.
Richard said: ‘He just sold a $57 million property for $21 million – what happened was, he took the $21 million to buy this property.’
‘So we financed the difference. He didn’t want to use his cash, it’s not like he lives in this property.
‘I mean, the guy’s got tons of properties, I guess properties to him are like you and I would have a car, or a watch, or a pair of pants.’
Kanye additionally borrowed $307,000 against a ‘cash balance pension plan’ with Provident Trust Group, which a financial expert claimed could be from the rapper’s retirement fund.
The loans from RGGL and Provident Trust were wrapped up in one $3 million mortgage contract and arranged by PMS.
The mortgage trustee is California TD Specialists, based in Anaheim Hills, who are experts at finalizing complex real estate deals.
They are also an arm of FCI Services, which on their website claims to be a ‘leading national non-QM and Private Money Servicer’. Non-QM loans are aimed at borrowers who don’t meet the usual criteria to buy a home and don’t qualify for conventional financing.
Kanye signed the $12.5 million and $3 million loan agreements under the official name ‘Ye’ on October 16. This was able to happen while the rapper was in Tokyo due to using a notary under Richard Smith, who is registered in Virginia.
Doug Perry is the strategic financing advisor at Real Estate Bees who provided an analysis of Kanye’s borrowing.
Perry says that while Kanye put in a substantial $19.5M down payment, his home loans are huge and come with risk.
Perry says: ‘There aren’t many lenders that make loans that large, the risk is simply too great. Kanye’s first mortgage is from Lone Oak, a recognized Business Purpose Commercial lender in the California market.
‘They do not lend on owner-occupied properties, and typically make bridge loans for 12 months with rates in the 8.5 to ten percent range, requiring interest-only payments during the loan term.
‘There is most likely a second mortgage because the first mortgage lender did not want to lend the entire loan amount, due to the risk of loaning one person or entity that much money.’
Perry explained why he believes some of the funds have come from Kanye’s pension, adding: ‘I think it is possible the source of the $3M is Kanye’s retirement account.
‘The company on the document, Provident Trust, is a firm that focuses on self-directed retirement accounts and there is a specific account number on the recorded beneficiary document, so it is likely Kanye borrowed from his own retirement for that part of the loan.’
Kanye also has a six-bedroom mansion in Calabasas which he bought for $2.2 million in May 2018.
His property portfolio includes two rental apartments in Calabasas and Thousand Oaks which cost $1.6 million and $575,000.
