Bobby Pin Traded Into House Gets Traded Again

In May 2020, Demi Skipper started with a one-cent bobby pin listed on Craigslist. Now, about two dozen trades later, Skipper has bartered her way up to an $80,000 house.

The San Francisco resident started her “Trade Me Project” with the goal of trading her way to a new home, and — as she revealed earlier this month on her TikTok and Instagram accounts — she says she’s finally done it, also picking up millions of social media followers along the way.

“After 28 trades and all the ups and downs, I finally did it,” Skipper says in a Dec. 12 video post, which shows her beaming outside the front door of a two-bedroom detached house near Nashville, Tennessee.

Despite starting with just a bobby pin and zero followers on social media, the project was almost immediately popular, attracting a million followers within the first couple of videos, according to Skipper.  This will change in January, as Skipper is already planning a “season two” of the Trade Me Project. After the holidays, Skipper plans to move to Tennessee to renovate the house, which she says she’ll then trade for a bobby pin.

“I’m going to give this house to somebody who really needs it in Tennessee. They are going to trade me a bobby pin and then I’m going to do the whole thing over.”