Ellen DeGeneres
Hosting her daytime talk show has been pretty good to comedienne Ellen DeGeneres, but house flipping has become somewhat of a second career for her. In 2014, DeGeneres and wife Portia de Rossi made a sweet $15 million profit on their Holmby Hills estate, which they sold to Napster founder Sean Parker.
"Changing my environment is in my blood," the talk show host told Architectural Digest. Clearly.
Courteney Cox
It's no secret that the "Friends" cutie made a ton of dough playing Monica on the hit TV show (remember that "$1 million per episode" deal?), but she's probably made just as much flipping houses.
Courteney Cox is famous for her love of mid-century modern houses. She famously bought a John Lautner home in Malibu for a cool $10 million that she later sold for $27.5 million. And her beloved Trousdale Estates (L.A.) home that she and then-husband David Arquette bought in 2006 earned her nearly $15 million in profit.
Cox's latest home is a Malibu estate that overlooks the beach.
"It's very simple, with bronzed-steel trim, white walls and wood floors," Cox says. "Nothing too cluttered and not a lot of fancy details … [it's] exactly how I want to live." So maybe she'll hold on to this one for a while.
Alex Rodriguez
Who knew the baseball star is also a burgeoning real estate mogul? After flipping a Manhattan condo for $2.5 million in profit, Alex Rodriguez turned to Miami, where he $30 million home, making a $15 million profit, as well as a parcel of condos in a highly sought-after part of the Florida hot spot.
The former New York Yankees star's business partner Jose More says Rodriguez, "really enjoys the design process."
He clearly enjoys the profits, too.
Jennifer Aniston
Now that she's settled into marriage with hubby Justin Theroux, maybe the "Friends" star won't be so likely to buy and sell homes. But like her celebrity bestie Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston's got a head for real estate.
Aniston's mid-century Beverly Hills mansion was featured in Architectural Digest after Aniston remodeled the home.
"I never doubted the house would be mine one day," she tells the magazine. Four years later, she sold the same house for a roughly $24 million profit.
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Tobey Maguire
The "Spider-Man" star wanted to get in on Los Angeles's hot real estate market by flipping a plantation-style home in Brentwood. The actor earned a roughly $2 million profit from the sale.
The "Great Gatsby Star," however, didn't always have the luxury of buying and selling houses for sport.
"As a kid, I was very poor," Maguire tells the Guardian. "I mean, it's all relative, but we would get groceries from neighbors. I always had a roof over my head, but I slept on couches of relatives, and some night we wandered into a shelter. My family had food stamps and government medical insurance. And I wanted to get out of that, so my ambition was initially to make money; I was pretty driven."
Jeremy Renner
Jeremy Renner is so into house flipping, he's got a partner. Back in 2002, when he was still a struggling actor, "The Avengers"actor and his partner bought their first flip. They made $300,000 on that house and have since flipped 16 more.
Their latest flip earned them a $17 million profit. But as Renner's acting career has taken off, his time for real estate has slowed.
"I don't have the time to do it right now, but I will probably get back into it when things slow down for me," Renner tells "Entertainment Tonight." "But it is not slowing down any time soon, it seems, so I've had to put the brakes on that for a second."
Meryl Streep
The Oscar winner is known for her iconic portrayals of Margaret Thatcher and Julia Child, but Meryl Streep and her husband, artist Don Gummer, also have had some luck in real estate. Streep even flipped her Los Angeles mid-century modern home called The Research House to another celebrity house flipper, Alex Rodriguez, for a tidy $300,000 profit.
Naturally the listing read, "No open houses. No exceptions."
Hmm, did A-Rod get to see the house before he bought it?
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Diane Keaton
The "Something's Gotta Give" star is known for selling houses after restoring them to their original style. The actress, who flipped her Pacific Palisades, Calif., home, always looks for a house with good light, telling Architectural Digest, "I should be in the business of lighting. I think these things. I'm a nut! But I just know what's right for me, and lights make the house seem alive."
Vanilla Ice
Possibly the most surprising celebrity house flipper, Vanilla Ice (aka Rob Van Winkle) might also be one of the most prolific. Ice, who got his start flipping houses when he was 16 and had a hit with "Ice Ice Baby." The rapper then went on to buy houses in Los Angeles, New York and Utah.
He told Time magazine, "For three years, I went on tour and never even saw one of them other than like once or twice. I just came back and thought I was really stupid and young and dumb. I sold them and literally made millions. I was like, 'Are you kidding me? It can't be that easy. Hell, let's go buy some more!'"
He began flipping more houses on his DIY Network TV show "The Vanilla Ice Project" and has no idea how many houses he's flipped to date.
Jack Osbourne
Ozzy progeny Jack Osbourne and his wife Lisa Stelly bought a Los Feliz home for $2.82 million. Three years later, he sold it for a nearly $400,000 profit. Not bad for a day's work. The reality star, now dad to two kids, told Celebrity Parents magazine, "It's a wonderful time in my life, and I'm enjoying it all."
Can you blame him?
Jane Seymour
The former Bond girl is known to millions as Dr. Quinn, or the feisty cougar in "Wedding Crashers," but the British beauty also has a knack for real estate. She first started flipping houses in 1987, when she sold a home to Cheryl Tiegs for$1.65 million. A year later, she bought and sold five more houses. Seymour sells the homes furnished, picks out the draperies herself and thinks every home should feel like an escape.
"When you're able to have a vacation in your own home, that's perfect," she says.
Yes, it is!
Jennie Garth
For her reality show "The Jennie Garth Project," the former "90210" star demolished her Hollywood Hills home herself. The blonde beauty saw the project and the show as a fresh start after her divorce from "Twilight" star Peter Facinelli.
She told OK magazine, "I bought a house that I had a very clear vision for what the house needed to become to see the full potential."
The series lasted one season.
Rosie O'Donnell
The talk-show host and controversial comedienne is also known for buying and selling real estate for a killing. From Miami to Chicago to Sarasota, Fla., Rosie O'Donnell has bought and sold homes for a profit. But after she sold her waterfront Miami estate in 2013 for $12.6 million, O'Donnell wrote on her website that her family didn't use it that much and it was too big for their needs.
Turns out she was actually trying to escape the tour buses and paparazzi that arrived when one of the "Real Housewives of Miami" bought a house nearby.
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Scott Disick
For the reality TV watchers wondering exactly what Kourtney Kardashian's baby daddy does for a living, that's still unclear. But one thing is clear, the "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" villain is getting in on L.A.'s real estate frenzy with a recent purchase of a Beverly Hills mansion he intends to remodel and flip.
But after Disick and Kourtney Kardashian broke up last spring, he found that a house isn't a home without your family. He admitted on the reality show, "It's been a really hard time going from, like, having all you guys, to having nobody. I made the worst decision I could ever have made in my life."
Aww.
Corbin Bernsen
Alongside wife actress Amanda Pays, the former "L.A. Law" star has renovated more than 20 houses and then sold them for profit. Pays, now an interior designer, calls house flipping an addiction. Corbin Bernsen adds that the two aren't in it just for the money.
He told the Los Angeles Times, "We both grew up with parents who gave attention to the homes they lived in, and I suppose that was passed on. The real truth here is that we just love doing it, and it's something we've had in common from Day One."
