Have You Considered Swapping Your Home?

More and more people have been affected by the current housing crisis. Millions of homeowners are unable to sell their home for as much as they owe on it. Millions more simply can’t make their mortgage payments. However, a new real estate trend is sweeping the nation and this one has real estate agents stumped.

The trend is home swapping. You read that right. Home swapping. Here’s how it works: One potential home buyer wants a bigger house. One potential home seller wants a smaller house. The buyer can’t get necessary funding without selling their primary residence first. So, the buyer and seller simply “sell” their houses to each other. Each of the closings would have to happen almost simultaneously in order to avoid any sort of financing hang-ups.

Believe it or not, this trend is sweeping the nation. Of course, both the buyer and seller have to agree to the terms of the swap. Similarly, both the buyer and seller end up being both a buyer and seller of one another’s home.

There isn’t really a way to track how large of a trend this is becoming because the National Association of Realtors does not keep track of home swaps in its annual averages. Stephanie Singer, of the National Association of Realtors, said, “We haven’t seen this happen on a very big scale. It can be a very complex transaction, especially if you’re crossing state lines.” However, no one can be certain how often this is happening.

There have been home-swapping websites created to facilitate such transactions. MK HomeSwap, GoSwap.org, Domuswap.com and OnlineHouseTrading.com are some of the most popular home swapping websites out there.

Areas that have been hit the hardest by the housing collapse are also the areas that are seeing the most swapping. Southern California, Arizona, Nevada and Florida are home to many home swaps per year. This is proof that homeowners are getting creative, especially when they have been hit hard by the housing market.

If you have been experiencing problems with your current mortgage or have had a hard time selling your home, you might want to consider listing your home on a home swap website. It may be your only opportunity to get out of your current mortgage without losing money on the transaction.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 9:45 pm and is filed under Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.