Trade Your Home Through A Home Swapping Service

by Silicon Valley Blogger on April 16, 2009

This house for trade!

home trade, home swap
Image from Best House Swap

A while back, we talked about what you can do if your house won’t sell. Well, if you’re running out of ideas, maybe you can try this one: I saw this story on my local news site, and I thought it was pretty cool. Now that the real estate market has slowed down from its once frenzied pace, selling a house has been harder to do. But fear not, there’s another way to relocate these days.

I read that there are now a few services that will help you unload your home in a more unconventional fashion. No, I’m not talking about online auctions (although that’s one way to do it). If you’re thinking of selling your house, and planning to buy a new place to live, well, why don’t you just take care of this whole situation in one fell swoop? I didn’t realize this before, but there are a lot of websites out there that are helping people perform house swaps, allowing homeowners to do direct real estate trades.

And if there are any discrepancies in the prices of homes, homeowners can just work out the differences on their own. I guess this is something people are now more open to trying out, given the longer wait involved in the whole buy and sell process. Plus, it can be one way to take the pain out of “mortgage juggling”.

For websites that help out with home swaps, try out Best House Swap, Go Swap and Online House Trading.

Would you be willing to try out this trading scheme?

Announcements

On that note, I found myself trading tips, this time with Andrea Chalupa of Wallet Pop. Today, I had a grand time participating in Wallet Pop’s online radio show. I was honored that Andrea invited me to a tete-a-tete where we got to discuss the economy and Silicon Valley; we also got to exchange some money saving ideas as well as tips on how to network. It was great fun! I’ve been trying to get used to participating in interviews since I’m a little new to this, but I think I’m slowly getting the hang of it! Here’s where you can hear us.

For this week’s financial tips, check out the news around the financial blogosphere:

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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }

1 MoneyEnergy April 16, 2009 at 10:50 pm

That’s pretty amazing…. never even heard of official home-swaps – I’ve heard of doing it for vacation purposes. The world is amazing…:) This adds a whole new layer of lifestyle options!

2 Anthony April 17, 2009 at 1:42 am

I don’t think I can. But if it works for others, good for them.

3 Kyle April 17, 2009 at 5:06 am

I like the idea of the house swap. These are the kinds of things that come up when the economy gets bad. People start going back to the barter system and make their own sub economies.

4 Miss M April 17, 2009 at 6:00 am

The market for this seems really limited. First you need two people who each want to live in the other’s city and neighborhood and want to move at the same time. Then they also have to want exactly what the other house offers, it seems to me this would be a tiny fraction of the market. I’d say the odds of finding a swapper are slim.

5 Tracie April 17, 2009 at 8:04 am

I have heard of this being done for vacationing families and such but, had not considered the idea of permanance. It just might work for those that really need/want to relocate.

6 Silicon Valley Blogger April 17, 2009 at 9:13 am

Miss M,

What I noticed from listings is that homeowners who list their homes are actually much more flexible than I thought they’d be. Many of them would move anywhere (if you check some of the listings) and also, the homes don’t have to be the exact size. Many want to downsize and when two homeowners get involved, they work out the differences somehow — the one who upgrades makes up the difference in cash (or may take out a mortgage). I can see how it can work….

7 GeekMBA360 April 17, 2009 at 9:49 am

I think this is an interesting idea, and could potentially save people thousands of dollars. I checked a few house swapping sites. The problem is that they all have limited inventories. So, I’ve very limited options for trading. For this business model to work, there need to be a large number of trading options. It’d be interesting to see how the house swapping sites will solve this problem.

8 Moneymonk April 17, 2009 at 11:13 am

I would never trade my house, I am proud of my home and it is my foundation

9 Manshu April 17, 2009 at 5:55 pm

Hmmm, this is very interesting, i don’t own a house, but if I did, I’d probably be willing to swap it, if I get a good deal.

10 Rich Johnson May 27, 2009 at 2:20 pm

Wow, it would seem that the road would be full of pit falls here. I’d recommend that anyone considering this would have it looked over by a real estate attorney who specializes in this type of transaction. This is truly outside the capability of a real estate licensee.

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