House swap resulted in happiness for the Harman family

Nick and Jenny Harman and their three children are among those who have already taken part in a house swap scheme with Heritage Estate Agents.

The couple, from Portishead, lived in a three-bedroom, semi-detached home and wanted to move to a larger property to accommodate the needs of their growing family.

After finding a four-bedroom house, they asked Heritage to look into the possibility of a house exchange.

Although, after inheriting the four-bed property, the owner had planned to rent it out, they agreed to the swap instead, and the Harman family paid the price difference and moved into their new home in November. They think house swapping is a brilliant idea.

"We got the bigger house we wanted and the vendor got a property in good condition which he could rent out immediately. We had been trying to sell for a while, but hadn't because of the market being slow," Jenny said.

"I would recommend home swapping as it takes away a lot of the stress of moving and because there is no chain as such, there is a lot less that can go wrong."

Paul Kingston, the director of Heritage Estate Agents, expects house swapping to grow in popularity in 2009. He explained that the property swap scheme meant that the agency now had another avenue to explore on their clients' behalf.

I think this idea will become more and more popular as the housing market becomes more challenging. More people will look at it as an alternative way of selling or moving on to their next home," he added.

"I cannot say it will solve the problems with the housing market, but it will create more movement within the market place."

Source: Bristol Evening Post | Last updated: 4th December 2008

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