Lifestyle

Celebrities Who Flip Houses on the Side

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If you think only struggling D-list actors pursue side careers as an alternative source of income between to acting gigs, you are wrong. These 6 A-listers are some of the most famous Hollywood house flippers at their spare time.

Ellen DeGeneres

Elen_hollywood

Mrs. DeGeneres’s list of flips is quite imposing: a 26-acre ranch in Thousand Oaks, California, which she successfully sold to Ryan Seacrest; Brad Pitt’s Malibu home bought in 2012 for $12 million and sold to Victoria Jackson, a cosmetics entrepreneur, for $13 million just one year later; and many other less famous homes. But the real gem is the Brody House in L.A. which she flipped for an amazing net profit of $15 million.

Diane Keaton

Diane Keaton

A self-professed design addict, Diane Keaton is really bent on historic renovations. She made her debut in 1996, when she sold the Lloyd Wright-designed Samuel-Novarro House in Hollywood Hills for about $950,000. Keaton moved on to Spanish-style homes restorations. In 2000, she sold one to Madonna for $6.5 million. Her recent projects include a Spanish Colonial Revival Style home in Beverly Hills that she bought for $8.1 million in 2007, and sold three years later to actor Ryan Murphy, the “Glee” star, for $10 million and Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Alfred Newman Estate in Pacific Palisades, which she also sold in 2010 for a reported $10.75 million.

Courteney Cox

Courteney Cox

Cougar Town star Courteney Cox’s specialty are top-notch architecture pieces, which she renovates into modern homes, while preserving their historic qualities. She purchased a Malibu John Lautner-designed home back in 2001, flipped it and sold it to the Dodgers owner in 2007. Next up is a five-bed Brentwood estate, sold to former talk show host Ricki Lake in 2002. A Quincy-Jones designed home in the Trousdale Estates was bought by Mrs. Cox in 2004 for $5.45 million and listed for $20 million.

Jennifer Aniston

Jennifer Aniston

Following in her best friend’s footsteps, Jennifer Aniston also ventured into the house flipping business. So far, her successes include a remodelled 8,500-square-foot mid-century modern Bel Air home, purchased for $21 million and sold for $38 million after the flip, and a lavish Beverly Hills mansion which cost her $13.5 million in 2006. Although she had to wait for a while to clinch the deal, it brought her $35 million in 2011.

Jeremy Renner

Jeremy Renner

Jeremy Renner knows his ways around property investments really well. He has so far flipped over 16 houses, and claims that he made more money from his real-estate career than from acting. The list includes a Nichols Canyon mid-century modern home which he bought in 2002 and sold within months for $900,000, then a Hollywood mansion, for which Renner scored net profit of nearly $1 million, another 6,000-square-foot Hollywood house purchased for $1.35 million in 2009 and put on market for $4.79 million, and an Art Deco mansion in Holmby Hills, purchased for $7 million in 2007, and sold for $24 million.

Corbin Bernsen

Corbin Bernsen

But no one can match Corbin Bernsen and his wife, actress Amanda Pays. The couple started flipping houses back in the late 1980s, and so far they have flipped over 20 houses. For them this is much more than an additional source of income. They say it has become an addiction. Among their sales of note is Steve Martin’s Beverly Hills home which he purchased from the couple in 1995 for $3 million.

The list of celebs turned-house flippers does not end here. Meryl Streep, Tobey Maguire, and Michael C. Hall are also among those who moonlighted to the business.

Quite a list, don’t you think?

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Derek Lotts is a Sydney based writer and researcher, a regular contributor at Smooth Decorator blog. He writes about décor, gardening, recycling, ecology and business. He thinks all of these topics fall under the self-improvement category. He believes in the power of sharing ideas and communicating via the internet to achieve betterment.

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