Other successful flippers include Jennifer
Aniston who spent five years doing up a Beverly Hills mansion she
bought for $13.5 million in 2006.
Jennifer Aniston is a successful flipper
She is one many stars plunging into property, rapidly buying and selling homes
and generating a profit either through renovations or by riding a rising
market – a practice known as “flipping” in the US.
It is the subject of several reality television shows such as Flipping Vegas.
Aniston did such a good job the house was featured in Architectural Digest,
subsequently selling for $35 million in 2011.
The Friends actress is currently said to be inviting offers in the region of
$40 million for another home she has remodeled in the smart Los Angeles
suburb of Bel-Air, which could net her an eight-figure profit.
Not to be outdone her Friends co-star Courteney Cox has also bought and sold
several homes. She recently listed her Beverly Hills mansion for $19.5
million, having bought it for $5.45 million a decade ago. In 2007 she made a
$17.5 million profit on a home in Malibu.
Courteney Cox’s home in Malibu
In the years before he was first nominated for an Oscar in 2009 Renner had
become a successful home renovator along with fellow actor Kristoffer
Winters, who was also in The Hurt Locker.
During their early careers they made more money from house flipping than
acting. They started in 2002, often sleeping on the sofas of homes they
bought that had no power.
The actors made $300,000 on the first flip and and have since bought and sold
two dozen more.
In 2007 they paid $7 million for an art-deco style mansion and according to
Renner “dumped a load into it”.
The six-bedroom, 11-bathroom home was later listed for $24.5 million and sold
to Christian Candy, the British property developer.
Luxury estate agent Mauricio Umansky said celebrity house flippers were helped
by their fame. He told Forbes: “One of the advantages celebs have for
flipping is brand recognition. They can get their name out there.”
Among the earliest successful Hollywood house flippers in the 1980s was Jane
Seymour, the British actress, who bought and sold up to a dozen houses,
renovating them with English-style interior decoration.
Another is Corbin Bernsen, star of the 1980s TV series LA Law. While Bernsen
was hitting the big time he and his wife were also busy buying and
renovating houses around Los Angeles.
They have since flipped 20 houses including one they sold to the comedian and
actor Steve Martin.
Bernsen recently told the Los Angeles Times Hot property section: “The
real truth here is that we just love doing it.”
His wife described house flipping as an “addiction” and said they
were currently renovating one that was “hideous” when they bought
it.