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Why sell your house, just swap it!
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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Chris and I have been very busy with home improvement projects as we prepare to trade in our two homes for a larger one that can better accommodate our new, six-person blended family. We listed one home last week with no seekers thus far – even though the house is listed 10% lower than its purchase price just a few years ago. I then noticed the housing swap classifieds on craigslist.org and became intrigued. With more sellers than buyers on the market, more and more persons are looking to trade their homes rather than complete the two-step process of selling than buying. The process is very much so like Yahoo! Personals or Match.com sites, only rather than finding your soul mate, you are hoping to match up with another prospective home seller/buyer that may be looking to downsize while you are looking to upsize or that is looking to move to your city/state while you are looking to move to theirs. What a phenomenal idea – at least it will be as home sellers and buyers open up to the idea. Most house trade/swap sites recommend you use this technique as a supplement to traditional MLS listing or classified ads which cater to new home buyers. To learn more about the process…
A few words to the wise: Both deals should close simultaneously with both parties using the same title company. Avoid trading with someone who owes more than the house is worth, because this person may have difficulty obtaining a new mortgage, according to OnlineHouseTrading.com.
Each of the following websites allow you to post multiple pictures (as many as 20) and a description of your home along what you are looking for in a new home (written description, no. of bedrooms & bathrooms, garage size, cities/zips you will consider, etc.).
Onlinehousetrading.com charges a one-time fee of $19.95 for a basic account. OnlineHouseTrading.com claims their marketing program brings an estimated 1 million people to their site each month (though only slightly more than 30,000 are unique visitors according to quantcast.com). Sources speculate there are an estimated 14,000 properties listed in the website’s database.
Domuswap.org – DomuSwap listings are currently free. DomuSwap intends to continue the free offer for some time and will always offer a free listing option. DomuSwap listings are valid until you sell your home, however long that takes. You may be asked to renew your listing (at no cost) periodically to make sure expired listings are removed. Though Domuswap has a selection to “Post listing to Craigslist,” we have yet to see our listing appear there. There are approximately 3,700 houses listed on DomuSwap.com, with about one in ten percent listed by real estate agents and another 32 new listing appearing just yesterday alone. According to quantcast.com, Domuswap reaches approximately
Craigslist.org – You may post anything you wish to sell, give away or barter – including houses – on Craigslist.org at absolutely no cost to you. “At Craigslist.org, the popular ad site, the number of ‘home swap’ listings—which includes people trading homes temporarily for vacation—jumped 56 percent, to 7,392 in the 12 months ending in December, the company says, and much of the growth came from people trying to permanently sell each other their homes,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
GoSwap.org is growing via viral advertising. All listings are free until swapped or sold as long as you invite four people to visit their website. Otherwise, the cost for basic services is $19. As with other sites, account upgrades may include advertising on search engines or publications such as Homes&Land; virtual tours or property trading advise. GoSwap currently shows about 1,000 listings.
Pad4pad.com appears to be a newer site and does not get nearly the site traffic, yet we decided to post here as well. Similar to goswap.org, pad4pad asks for email addresses of five other interested parties in order to forgo the listing fee.
Listing on all five sites cost us less than $20. Wish us luck!
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5 Responses to “Why sell your house, just swap it!”
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Housing swaps are becoming pretty popular these days.
haha. nice post!!!
Goswap.org is a great resource! Lots of happy Swappers!
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That’s pretty cool. swapping houses???I’ve never heard it before.. but what if the owner of the house doesn’t like your house.? I like that barter trade but is it reaallly popular these days?