Flip that house, buy, revamp, and sell with a profit.

Posted on February 4, 2009 | 1 comment

The latest trend in real estate; house flipping . It means buying a run down property, fixing it up, and then selling it with a profit. A bit like some people do with furniture. There’s some pretty good cash to be made there if you play it right.

The trend has not gone unnoticed by TV producers in both the US and Europe. On both sides of the big pond a TV show called either Flip that House or Flip this House is part of many daytime schedules. It’s a half hour to an hour reality show following the transformation of different properties in mainly the US or the UK. Each episode features a different flipper, the person that bought the house, who is going to have it revamped and hopefully sell it for more then they put into it. In most cases these people are familiar with real estate and renovation, but sometimes the show features novices in this field of business.

The show opens with the purchase of the house. A short tour of the property and and interview with the new owner will tell the viewer what the plans are to make this house profitable. Viewers then learn the story of the actual renovation, the set backs along the way and will eventuallybe  shown the result with dramatic before and after shots. At the end of each show an expert real estate agent reveals if all this hard labour will have been worth it by estimating the new selling price of the property.

Often the results are stunning. In some cases the new owner is trying too hard not to spend too much on it which usually shows in the end result. But in all cases, it provides great television!

DCI I

Images: DCI I

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Posted in General living and fun stuff

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Rakin’ in design.. for free!

Posted on February 3, 2009 | 3 comments

Friends of ours have recently purchased an amazing house in a new development.  The house won’t be finished for a while, but it is never to early to start planning the decorating of the house! Especially if you have a master plan…

They vowed to try to decorate the house, or at least parts of it, for free….How, I hear you ask? By making use of my (and their own) online buying tips! Buy and sell with a profit are the magic words in this story my friends. Their ultimate goal is to buy a light grey Cassina MISS sofa. It’s the mother of all sofa’s and makes for a stunning feature in your house AND for relaxing evenings in front of the box.

However, they do not want to spend a single penny on it…..  And here’s how they are doing so far.

In order to achieve their dream they are currently buying and reselling design furniture they find online. Here is a picture of their sitting room as it was up to last Thursday.

 Last week the same site they sold their sofa through listed an ad of someone selling their B&B sofa for €2250. It was in better condition than the one they had just sold for €3500 so they bought it.  In order to accommodate the large design piece, They stored the Le Corbusier sofa and chairs and put the B&B in it’s place for as long as it lasts. They immediately put up an ad on the same website asking  €4000 for the sofa, hoping to get €3250. That would mean a total profit of €3750! 

Sitting room before

Sitting room before

 Lots of Le Corbusier chairs. They actually found those online too. And yes, that is an Eileen Grey side table you see in the corner. And the good news is that that same little table will be gracing my sitting room with its presence soon!

But the plot thickens. They bought a 2nd hand B&B Italia Charles sofa for €3000,-. However, after a few weeks, they realized that as beautiful as it was, it was anything but comfortable (as often is the case with design). They sold it online with a profit of €500,-. In the mean time they bought the Le Corbusier sofa and chairs as on the picture and put those in their sitting room, thinking they would keep the room as on the picture until the new house was finished.

 

The coffee table and side table are from the same collection as the sofa; B&B Italia Charles.

Sitting room after, with the B&B Italia Charles sofa

Sitting room after, with the B&B Italia Charles sofa

 

 

But the plot thickens even further…. Unbelievably enough they found an identical sofa online for €850!  It is not in as good a condition as the other one, but will easily make €2000 bringing their total to €5000! All this within a few weeks work. And this is just the beginning.

Good luck guys, you are an inspiration to many of us!

I am now logging off to frantically look for something I can sell with a profit to start my fortune….Anyone interested in a Bijenkorf Table from the 60’s?

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Posted in Design, designers and online finds

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Christian Lacroix sells his Paris apartment

Posted on February 3, 2009 | Leave a comment

Look at these wonderful shots of Fashion Designer Lacroix’s wonderful Paris apartment…
Obviously, the decor is stunning. Understated, charming, eclectic and a tad bohemian; I love it.

Great taste Mr Lacroix!

Great taste Mr Lacroix!

The apartment, or actually more or less house, is located in the very plush (and shamelessly gay) Marais district of the French Capital. Whoever is able to dish up the surprisingly modest €2,000,000 will be rubbing elbows with supermodels, photgraphers, designers and thespians from the world over. Also, the Marais has a huge Gay population making this the obvious choice for Mr Lacroix to buy back when.

With approximately 200m2 (2250 square feet) the apartment is not huge for such a high profile figure.
It also looks quite modest, yet so incredibly tasteful it hurts. It is making me just a bit jealous to be honest. It has a patio where we don’t even have a balcony .

Outside and view from sitting room towards patio

Outside and view from sitting room towards patio

The apartment is part of a late-17th-century building near the historic Place des Vosges and the Picasso Museum. It has an upper floor with sitting room, kitchen and general living areas designed around a small patio of roughly 18m2 (200 square feet) and a lower floor with four bedrooms and bathrooms.

There’s also a mezzanine room now used as a library. The ceilings of the living floor are 13 feet high which allows for a very roomy and dramatic ambience. Throughout the place one can find many classic original details, including gilded moldings in the master bedrooms and French doors. The bathrooms and kitchen have been recently renovated. Mr. Lacroix has moved to another apartment just a few steps away in the same fabulous Marais district.

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Posted in Homes of the rich and famous, See how others live

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2nd hand for the price of a new one.

Posted on February 3, 2009 | 2 comments

This ticks me off bad.

On Dutch auction site marktplaats.nl I saw an ad for a 2nd hand Ikea lamp. Quite a lovely one, we have two at home. You can actually see them in the main image at the top of this site. We paid something like 32 euro for the two together. She states it’s made of glass, but believe me, it’s plastic. Nevertheless, it’s a lovely lamp.

When reading her ad I noticed that she was asking 19.95 for hers, mind you, a 2nd hand one!

Thinking the poster of this ad might have been confused I sent an email stating that the new price is actually around 16 euro’s which is lower than what she was asking for her 2nd hand one.  I was unaware of a price increase, so when I received an email from the poster, a lady going by the name of Misz Persia, saying that “I needed to check ikea.nl, and this time with my eyes open”, I was a bit shocked. Her agressiveness led me to believe that she was well aware of her unkosher trademanship…

Nonetheless I checked the website, and in fact, I stand corrected, the lamp now costs 19.95.. which is exactly what she charges for her 2nd hand one. “there’s is nothing wrong with it” she claims in her add. Immediately followed by “that’s is one of the reasons I am getting rid of it”. Guess she is in fact looking for a lamp with something wrong with it?

I think there’s a lot wrong with that lamp…..

Mental note to self, never do business with Misz Persia. She sells you used stuff, doesn’t hide that it is not new, yet charges exactly the same as the shop does. Try doing that with a car!

Honestly, I ask you

image courtesy of Ikea.nl. It's a lovely lamp

image courtesy of Ikea.nl. It's a lovely lamp

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Posted in Design, designers and online finds

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