Ellen DeGeneres‘ glass is definitely half full, as she is seemingly thriving since being “cancelled” and being “kicked out of show business.” And a large part of her current happiness is due to her and wife Portia de Rossi moving from the U.S. to Europe. The Cotswolds in the U.K. to be exact!
The other reason the 67-year-old former talk show host doesn’t seem to be upset about her Hollywood departure is because of her real estate side hustle, which she has described as a “very lucrative hobby.”
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Ellen DeGeneres And Portia De Rossi's House-Flipping Empire
The Finding Dory actress has been buying, renovating, and selling properties for decades – and according to the Wall Street Journal, her house-flipping side hustle has given her an eye-watering $190M profit! Interestingly, nobody, not even Ellen herself, can reveal the exact number of houses she has in her portfolio, as she reportedly told the WSJ that she has "lost count" of how many homes she and Portia have flipped over the years!
Reports suggest she and Portia are now looking to expand their house-flipping portfolio in the U.K., fueling speculation that the couple don't plan on returning to Los Angeles – or the U.S. in general – anytime soon.
Akin to Rosie O'Donnell, the former Ellen DeGeneres Show host left the U.S. after Donald Trump was re-elected. It's currently unknown whether she will return when he leaves the White House.
Some Of Ellen's Most Impressive Property Deals
Ellen is currently trying to sell her sprawling Cotswolds estate for around $30M – and her back catalog of deals is just as impressive! In 2011, she scooped up Brad Pitt's Malibu house for roughly $12M, only to sell it the next year for around $13M. In 2012, she purchased an $8.5M horse ranch in Hidden Valley, flipping it in 2013 for just under $11M.
In 2015, she grabbed a Beverly Hills villa for $16M and sold it just two years later for double the price. Yes, double! And in 2021, Ellen and Portia snagged Montecito's historic Villa Tragara for $21M, selling it later that same year for more than $35M! Wow!
What Is The Secret To Ellen's Real Estate Success?
With numbers like these, it's no wonder Ellen seems unbothered by her aforementioned exile from Hollywood. So what's her secret to consistently turning over such massive profits?
Ellen told the WSJ her homes "always sold for more because I always did little tweaks." She explained: "I would sell the house completely furnished, so people wouldn't have to do anything, which was a dream."
"She sees potential where others don't," Robert Riskin of Village Properties/Forbes Global Properties in Montecito told the outlet, adding: "Maybe it's an area of the property nobody's really using – she'll turn it into a spot everyone wants to hang out in. Or she'll take a tricky floor plan and rework it so it flows perfectly."
