In 2005, Canadian blogger Kyle MacDonald hit the headlines by bartering up his single red paperclip into a two-story farmhouse over the course of 14 transactions. Inspired by the successful quest, 29-year-old Demi Skipper from San Francisco has set out on a journey to repeat history.

With a single bobby pin in her account, Demi intends “to make one trade at a time, starting with a bobby pin and ending with a house.” As crazy as it sounds, she has already made a fair amount of solid transactions and is nowhere near about to slow down.

Since Demi launched her Trade Me Project account on TikTok, which follows her through what looks like the coolest project to have hit the media during the pandemic season, it has already amassed 3.8M followers and 24.7M likes. Let’s take a look at how she has been doing so far and it may well change the way we look at a lonely hair clip nestled in a sofa crack forever.

More info: TikTok | Instagram | YouTube

Demi has set out to see whether this single bobby pin can lead her to a house through a series of trading transactions

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

And here is the list of 15 trade-offs she has done so far

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Demi, who works for a restaurant reservation app and runs a wedding dress rental business, claims that she has been a natural born hustler her whole life. It was just natural for her to put her negotiating skills to the test with the Trade Me Project experiment.

But as simple as it looks, the trades often take hours of preparation before the transaction is sealed. “Everybody just sees the TikTok video and the videos are just a minute. And what they’re not seeing is hours and hours of research that’s going into this,” Demi told Good Morning America.

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Demi is as determined as ever. It’s not a question of whether she gets her house, but rather when it’s gonna happen. “I am in go-mode until I get the house,” she claims.

For everyone who thinks the 29-year-old has gone mad, Demi reminds us of Kyle MacDonald’s famous bartering quest called “The One Red Paperclip Project.” “If you think I am crazy, in 2006, someone traded a red paperclip up until they got a house, so let’s do it,” said Demi in one of her videos.

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

The bartering trick has long been known in popular culture and folklore. For example, the Japanese Buddhist legend of the “Straw Millionaire” follows the journey of a poor man who becomes wealthy through a series of successive trades, starting from just a single piece of straw.

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

Demi’s most recent transaction got her this boosted board and it’s not near the end! 

Image credits: trademeproject

Image credits: trademeproject

@trademeprojectTrading a bobby pin for a house. Traded the boosted board 💪 ##fyp ##trademeproject ##letsgetthishouse♬ Renee – Sales

Image credits: trademe

Image credits: trademeproject

And people are loving the project

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