Here is a Friends Bricks review.

Here is a New Elementary review.

I don't know why exactly because I always avoided Friends as investment, but this set really apeals to me as investment

2 hours ago, Neosphinx said:

I don't know why exactly because I always avoided Friends as investment, but this set really apeals to me as investment

because Friends don't sell well after retirement and the most popular sets don't retire fast enough.

Yup....it's official. I'm a friends fan. It may suck as investment and the stickers will haunt me in my dreams... but that amount of nice pieces and detail is superb.

Review in Dutch

It is a nice set indeed. But only the first generation did well. So far.

On ‎12‎/‎12‎/‎2015 at 7:00 PM, Neosphinx said:

Yup....it's official. I'm a friends fan. It may suck as investment and the stickers will haunt me in my dreams... but that amount of nice pieces and detail is superb.

Review in Dutch

It's a very nice set indeed... but,

These sets are slow sellers in my experience. Most of my (retired) large set stock is gone now. But at low margin and mostly to resellers.

Many investors overstocked on Olivia House. Maybe they will stay away from this set? If so, it could be a sleeper. 

A personal field check also made me wary:

My daughters don't ask for more Friends sets unlike at the start of this.

I tried to trigger the Heartlake Town concept: play, build, extend & make a set-up, but there wasn't that much interest. They are mostly using the colored bricks to make their own creations, not asking for more of the same. (We have all sets incl. the shopping mall which was the last addition). I skipped the last wave (which was too much 'barbie' show model girly style for my taste)

The only set that didn't get 'destroyed' was the Dolphin Cruiser. That's one they keep seperate and play with most.

Conclusion: I'm staying away. There's still a stock of smaller or unretired sets left to sell too, so unless I see a better turnover on them, I remain on the sidelines. 

At start I was very positive on this - but in the end, these investments were close the the worst I've done since starting some years ago.

I think the only good counter-argument to that is that this is a very modular-like set. Olivia's House and Emma's House are not near this quality. That said, I'm staying away for investment. Love it personally, though.

24 minutes ago, minicoopers11 said:

I think the only good counter-argument to that is that this is a very modular-like set. Olivia's House and Emma's House are not near this quality. That said, I'm staying away for investment. Love it personally, though.

It's too early to decide for me.

Just picked up two of these from Smyths in the UK (reduced to £69.99 from RRP of £99.99) to make a modular-style Grand Hotel MOC.

Found 6 @ Walmart for $64 each. At that price, I have no hesitations for this set.

Agreed my summer riding camps did great selling for 205-215 each, buy in 65-85.  So 100% net is a good investment.  In looking for more, but remaining stock has not gone to clearance yet.  Smaller sets no chance except for maybe the treehouse.

Just posting this for future reference.   In November 2017 this set retired:

Do you want to make a prediction of value in Nov 2018 for future reference too?

1 minute ago, Val-E said:

Do you want to make a prediction of value in Nov 2018 for future reference too?

80-90% of RRP? I say that as most buy-ins are probably 60-70% off?

Hard to judge with Friends but the long lifespan won´t help it much at the beginning, same as Olivia´s House. You do get a lot of pieces for your money and it is still the biggest ever Friends set till they do a UCS Foal feeding treehouse.

19 hours ago, Val-E said:

Do you want to make a prediction of value in Nov 2018 for future reference too?

I'm guessing .... around €140 - €150 (not including taxes and/or shipping). That would be around double buy-in for people who bought it around €70 - €75 which wasn't too hard to do.

19 hours ago, TabbyBoy said:

80-90% of RRP? I say that as most buy-ins are probably 60-70% off?

Ha! That's what they're being sold at right now in The Netherlands on Marktplaats, or about even for about RRP on eBay (Europe). I figure it will gain more value than this in 12 months time.  

1 hour ago, Haay said:

I'm guessing .... around €140 - €150 (not including taxes and/or shipping). That would be around double buy-in for people who bought it around €70 - €75 which wasn't too hard to do.

Ha! That's what they're being sold at right now in The Netherlands on Marktplaats, or about even for about RRP on eBay (Europe). I figure it will gain more value than this in 12 months time.  

Well, the Dutch are clearly accustomed to paying too much for their Lego. SAH confirms this.

Winner.

I listed a badly damaged box at retail about a week ago.  Thought I’d get someone to bite in the post Christmas market (box damaged stuff always seem to do well in Jan)
Sold in an hour.  Stunning for a set that was available at Argos 3/2 at £52 per in July.    
 

I never pulled the trigger on this one, was often around for £50 but seemed to be available forever and friends hasn't always done great in UK so I decided to pass.

Not a bad return for those who took a punt though. 

Sold one for what was the going rate of around £65 about 2 months ago at most. Noticed the price going up very nicely a couple of weeks back. Glad I kept the other 3

I forgot I had some of these from Tesco's "price-error" sale ;-)

It's doing better already than the one year earlier retired 41058 Shopping Mall in terms of percentage increase.