For Sloft+ members only
“Chance Card! You’re investing in real estate with your new partner. Advance ten squares in life, without having to start from square one.” Alix and Joachim’s story readily brings to mind a certain famous board game. An architect and the co-founder of the ULM agency, Joachim is quick to admit that it was all a wild roll of the dice. “One day, my girlfriend – whom I’d known only four months – and I were returning from a ski holiday, and we asked each other: “What if we played a game of Monopoly? What could we afford if you sold your apartment and I sold mine?” The young couple then set out to find the perfect gem from classified ads – for a below-market budget.
After skimming through the most whimsical offers, such as a butcher shop in need of an overhaul, one ad caught their attention: the auctioning off of a duplex in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, estimated within their presumed means: “We knew that buying together didn’t make sense. It was like a game,” recalls the architect. Once on site, the lovebirds were surprised by the property: perched on the top two floors of a Haussmannian building, they found a perfectly sound 80-square-meter apartment needing a slight facelift. Above all, it had plenty of potential. Against all odds, their bid was chosen, for a total cost of 7,200 euros per square meter, which is still very reasonable in Paris, even post-Covid. They promptly sold their respective apartments while Joachim’s agency got to work on the first sketches. The aim was to eliminate the central hallway and open up a load-bearing wall to make the first level open-planned. Then, merge the two former maid’s quarters above into a pleasant primary suite. A straightforward program that was quickly turned on its head with the drawing of a new “Chance Card,” announcing the imminent arrival of a very happy event.
