Have You Considered Swapping Homes Instead of Selling?
A new trend has arisen in the housing market among those wishing to either upgrade or downsize in their homes. With the housing market in a slump, many who would like to sell their homes are unable to do so because the prices have hit an all-time low. They would not be able to receive enough profit from the sale for it to be of any financial benefit for them.
This trend has started with the experience of a Canadian blogger, Kyle MacDonald, who made headlines by eventually being able to become a home owner through swapping. This story made headlines all over the world as MacDonald started his swapping experience with a single red paper clip. Each swap gave him larger and more expensive items and he eventually acquired a home.
This is an exceptional case, but house swapping is a viable alternative than putting your house on the market and going through the stress of waiting for it to sell. Many swapping sites have sprung up in Britain over the past year. Swaptogo is one such site that was set up by Terry Charles-MacLean, a real estate agent and managing director of Direct Property Exchange.
Terry was successful in swapping his own home and set up the website to help other interested homeowners accomplish the same feat. In less than six weeks he was able to swap his bungalow for another house. He feels that bypassing the real estate agents as the middlemen helped to speed up the process significantly.
According to him, such swapping keeps the development of chains to a minimum because `the vendors know who’s in their chain, it’s short and easily manageable.”
He goes on to say, “30% of chains were crashing a year ago and I suspect that number is greater now because people are having more difficulty getting mortgages.”
Home swapping takes place completely online almost like a matching database. To get started you enter the details of your home, including its size, location, details of the rooms and a photo. Then you enter the details of the type, size and location of house for which you would like to swap.
The website will then run through the list of properties to find ones that match what you are looking for and return the results to you. Then you start communicating with the vendors on your own. When a match is found, you won’t receive any personal details about the vendor – just a way of getting in touch with this person.
Lorna Smith is another example of a home swapper looking for a new home. She and her family owned a home in Murthly, near Perth and were interested in finding a suitable home near Glasgow. When she signed up for Swaptogo, she found that she could immediately start looking for a home that suited her needs. She feels that the more people that become involved in this process, the more home swapping will take place. She hasn’t had success yet, but is still looking.
She says, “We haven’t had a match yet, but I suspect that’s purely because the site’s not well known enough. A few months down the line there could be more people joining and there’ll be a greater possibility for a match.”
