One Red Paper Clip

Remember Kyle MacDonald, the guy who made fourteen trades to move up from a red paper clip to a house?  From The National Post, here is my piece on how he did it, what he really did, and what he is doing today.  Kyle worked at these trades for a full year, so here is the opening puzzle:

Judging from the local real estate market, Kyle’s house is worth about
$50,000. Why didn’t Kyle just go out and buy a house? Surely such a
smart and able person could have spent the year working at a good job.

My favorite part of the story is when Kyle trades a day with Alice Cooper for a motorized snow globe with multi-colored lights.