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In 2023, Mark Cuban found himself sitting on a warehouse floor with viral sensation Bobbi Althoff as a guest on Really good podcast (1).
During the 58-minute interview, Althoff used his awkward but engaging tactics to get Cuban to open up about a range of topics, from the Mavericks to Shark Tank — and even asked him for $5 million to buy a house.
“You could give me a billion dollars right now and it probably wouldn’t even touch you,” Althoff joked, negotiating with Cuban. “$5 million fine, we’ll go small. I could buy a house in Southern California.”
Despite finding common ground over shared birthdays and lactose intolerance, Cuban didn’t budge. He warned Althoff that even with a multi-million dollar donation, life in California would remain beyond her means.
“I would have given you $5 million for nothing,” the Shark Tank star replied.
Cuban explained to her why owning such an expensive house wouldn’t work, even if he bought it for her.
When the podcast originally aired in 2023, the average sale price of a home in California was $742,000, according to Redfin (2). Prices are now about 7% higher, with the median sales price approaching $800,000, making California the most expensive place to buy a home in America (3).
Cuban stressed the importance of considering the full financial picture when thinking about home ownership. While you may think you can afford the initial down payment, there can be significant ongoing expenses associated with maintaining a property.
“You have to pay all those taxes,” Cuban said, nodding to California’s high property tax rates.
According to data from the California Association of Realtors as of November 2025, a minimum annual income of $223,600 is required to afford the costs associated with property in the state.
Fortunately, there are ways you can make money in today’s real estate market that don’t involve buying a home, paying property taxes, or taking on the task of managing a rental property and tenants.
Platforms like Arrived allow you to invest in property shares for as little as $100.
Backed by world-class investors like Jeff Bezos, Arrived’s easy-to-use platform offers SEC-qualified investments, including rental homes and vacation rentals. Arrived allows you to buy stakes in rental properties, earn dividends and skip property management responsibilities.
Their flexible investment options allow accredited and non-accredited investors to easily benefit from this inflation-hedging asset class. Start by searching for verified properties, then simply select a property and choose the number of shares to buy.
If you want to make a bigger investment, you can also take advantage of private real estate opportunities.
Now, accredited investors can use the same approach through platforms like Lightstone DIRECT, giving you access to institutional-quality multifamily and industrial real estate – with a minimum investment of $100,000.
Founded in 1986 by David Lichtenstein, Lightstone Group is one of the largest private real estate investment firms in the US with more than $12 billion in assets under management.
Over nearly four decades, their team has delivered strong risk-adjusted performance over multiple market cycles, including a historical net IRR of 27.6% and a historical net equity multiple of 2.54x for investments made since 2004.
With Lightstone DIRECT, you get access to that proprietary transaction stream.
Here’s why: Lightstone invests at least 20% of its own capital in each deal – about four times the industry average. With skin on the line, the firm ensures that its interests are directly aligned with those of its investors.
Read more: Approaching retirement with no savings? Don’t panic, you are not alone. Here are 6 easy ways to catch up (and fast)
In classic Althoff fashion, she not only asked Cuban for $5 million, but also offered to invest in her podcast.
“I don’t know if I would invest in a podcast,” Cuban joked.
Although Cuban was hesitant to jump into Althoff’s investment offering, he’s certainly not against diversifying his investments. According to his website, Cuban has invested in all kinds of goods and services—from NBA franchises to healthy bakeries (5).
Diversifying your assets can be a great way to protect your wealth. Often, when investors diversify, they look for alternative assets that differ from the stock market.
That’s especially the case now, as fears of a potential AI bubble are causing some investors to keep most of their money in the stock market.
On AI pioneers podcast in November 2025, Cuban chimed in, saying, “I don’t think it’s a traditional stock market bubble.” Although he cautioned that there may be smaller bubbles in the industry, saying that “to be the market leader, they may overspend (6).”
If you’re mostly invested in the S&P 500, your portfolio is very vulnerable to those companies vying for the AI throne. Just five major AI companies – Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Meta and Microsoft – account for 30% of the S&P 500, according to CNBC (7).
If any of these companies were to collapse, investors would see their portfolios suffer.
At the Global Financial Leaders’ Investment Summit in November 2025, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said: “There is likely to be a 10 to 20 percent pullback in equity markets sometime in the next 12 to 24 months.”
With this kind of warning sign, diversification is not only smart, it’s essential.
One notable example: postwar and contemporary art, which has outperformed the S&P 500 by 15% from 1995 to 2025, while showing near-zero correlation with traditional stocks.
Until recently, this world was forbidden. Now with Masterworks you can buy fractional shares in multi-million dollar works by icons like Banksy, Picasso and Basquiat. While art can be illiquid and typically requires long-term holding, it provides unique portfolio diversification.
Masterworks has sold 25 artworks to date, producing net annualized returns of 14.6%, 17.6% and 17.8%.*
Moneywise readers can get priority access to diversify with art: Skip the waiting list here.
Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Investment involves risk. See important Regulation A information at Masterworks.com/cd
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The Really Good Podcast (1); Redfin (2, 3); California Association of Realtors (4); Mark Cuban Companies (5); AI Pioneers (6); CNBC (7)
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. Offered without warranty of any kind.
