Rapper Rick Ross Boosts Star Island Mortgage to $35 Million

Rick Ross took his hustling mentality straight to the bank.

The Grammy-nominated rapper and record executive, whose legal name is William Leonard Roberts II, secured $10.7 million in additional financing, backed by his waterfront Star Island estate in Miami Beach. Records show an affiliate of Brickell-based Vaster is the lender. The new debt brings his balloon mortgage principal to $35 million.

Ross paid $35 million for the 12,400-square-foot mansion at 37 Star Island Drive in 2023. That pencils out to $2,823 per square foot. Vaster provided the original $20 million loan in 2023, and another $4.3 million in July of last year, based on a 50 percent loan-to-value ratio.

Ross’ nearly 1-acre estate has six bedrooms, eight bathrooms, one-half bathroom, a home office, covered terrace and pool deck with a summer kitchen. The property has 100 feet of water frontage on Biscayne Bay and a 40-foot dock.

Ross, who grew up in the Carol City neighborhood of Miami Gardens, founded the record label Maybach Music Group in 2009.

At the time of his Star Island purchase, his neighbor Sean “Diddy” Combs, gifted Ross a golf cart, according to a post on Instagram. Combs is in federal prison serving a 50-month sentence for prostitution-related convictions. Ross was the first artist signed to Diddy’s management company, Ciroc Entertainment, in 2009.

Star Island, with about 30 homes, experienced turnover shortly after the pandemic began. Buyers who included billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin moved in. Griffin now controls about 6.5 acres of contiguous land on the island.

About a year ago, billionaire developer Vlad Doronin sold his estate on the island for $120 million, a record at the time for home sales in Miami-Dade County. And in the fall, billionaire Russell Weiner paid $35.3 million for the 1.1-acre property at 43 Star Island Drive, which previously belonged to former talk show host and comedian Rosie O’Donnell.