There are only a million shows on TV these days about people buying dilapidated old houses, remodeling them, and turning them into pay dirt. Who knew the business model works elsewhere too? The New York Times reports today about a new breed of entrepreneurs buying poorly programmed, ugly duckling websites, then retooling them and then (yeah, we hate this term too) "flipping them" for a profit.

At least on the surface, it seems like a fairly sweet business model: there's little overhead (you just need a computer and some software) or labor costs (that is, if you can design and program). In fact, the main expenditure is the up-front cost of purchasing the website, and most of those are had on the cheap. Sounds like a business plan made in heaven. Says one flipper:

"I used to make my own Web sites and sell them, but then I realized, 'Hey, this is much easier than making them.' It's as simple as buying a Web site from someone and making it more attractive. It's about creating value where there was none.'"

Of course, how much profit you can actually make off these sites depends on the domain name and the kind of traffic you've generated through the changes you've made (to wit: The average selling price of Web sites on eBay was $78 last month. Small peanuts.) Remember—boosting traffic enough to attract real money is not necessarily a given, which means you could run into cash flow problems, fast (hey, a programmer's still gotta eat!). The problem is that there's no one formula for moving a website up in the organic search rankings - the pathway to ridiculous traffic - and figuring out strategies that actually accomplish that has developed into a field that's a mix of art and voodoo.

But maybe we're just being pessimistic. What do you think of this business as a viable start-up—winner, dud, or just a flavor of the week?