Before Mark Cuban owned a 24,000-square-foot mansion so massive he forgot parts of it existed, he was broke, living with five roommates, and cruising around in a junker car, burning gas just to ogle "big houses." That habit wasn't just entertainment—it was fuel.
"I would just ride around all day looking at the big houses, listening to Zig Ziglar on motivational tapes that I bought for half price at Half Price Books," Cuban told Money magazine in a 2017 interview. His inspiration? A little-known 1988 book called Cashing In on the American Dream: How to Retire by the Age of 35 by Paul Terhorst.
"The whole premise of the book was if you could save up to $1 million and live like a student, you could retire," Cuban said. "I believed heavily in that book. It was a big motivator for me."
And while the book taught him discipline—he lived off macaroni and cheese, drove the "worst" possible car, and poured money into his businesses—what happened after his first big payday took the dream into surreal territory.
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In a 2019 segment for GQ's "Actually Me," Cuban confirmed a rumor that he once played wiffle ball inside his mansion. "Absolutely," he said. "One of my former partners came to me and said, ‘There's this enormous house that some guy spent $25 million to build, and I can get it for half the cost that it cost him to build—$12 million.' I said, ‘I'll buy it sight unseen.'"
The home, located in Dallas, clocked in at a staggering 24,000 square feet. To this day, he admitted, "I still don't know how many bedrooms or bathrooms. A year or two would go by and I wouldn't go upstairs, and there are rooms I still haven't been in in years."
In true bachelor billionaire fashion, Cuban didn't bother decorating either. "Until I got married, effectively, I had no furniture," he said. "And we played wiffle ball in my ballroom." He described the setup: fireplace, window, pillar, bar—plus bases. "My buddies would come over and it was big enough, you could curve the ball and hit and run and hit home runs."
Despite the sheer scale, Cuban has lived in the same home for over 25 years and says he's never felt the need to upgrade. In the Money interview, he said his only real splurge was a private jet. "That was my all-time goal, because the asset I value the most is time, and that bought me time."
Cuban's real estate journey shows the extreme contrast between inspiration and execution. The kid who used to circle wealthy neighborhoods ended up buying a mansion so large he couldn't even mentally map it out. But even then, the purchase was made with intentionality—at half price, and sight unseen.
Of course, Cuban is a billionaire who sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo for billions. But real estate investing doesn't have to mean buying an "enormous" home or juggling a bunch of rental properties.
Arrived is a platform that offers regular people a way to invest in fractional shares of rental properties—without the hassle of tenants, repairs, or surprise property taxes. Backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Arrived lets anyone start with as little as $100 and earn truly passive income. It's a modern entry point into real estate for those who want the cash flow without the chaos.
For those chasing wealth or the perfect property, it's a reminder that the dream home might be less about the square footage and more about what it represents. Cuban used his as a marker of success—but never forgot the mindset that got him there. The mansion may have rooms he hasn't even explored, but the real value lies in the discipline, timing, and strategic thinking that turned the dream into a down payment.
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