Tackle the housing slump by swapping your home

Heritage Estate Agents - part of the Home Sale Network of national independent estate agents, is offering to help people afford to move house during the current housing market climate, by giving them the chance to engage in a house swap scheme.

The company, which has four branches in North Somerset, has found the strategy to be popular with buyers and sellers, who are given the opportunity to swap properties instead of buying and selling them on the open market.

Anyone taking part in the scheme has their home advertised along with their requirements for a new property. This information is also added to the estate agent's database which looks for possible matches on a daily basis.

A sales loop, rather than a chain, is formed by the swap scheme, which can include between two and five property owners.

Once underway, the house swap process works much like any normal home sale, with Heritage Estate Agents charging the same fee for overseeing the process, and searches and legal conveyancing going ahead as usual.

Paul Kingston, the company's director, said that the aim behind the house swap scheme was to help stimulate the local property market.

"This is an alternative way to the usual method of direct sales. In this kind of market place, agents need to be extremely proactive and look at different ways of introducing buyers to sellers," he said.

"Because the sale is more of a loop than a chain, with each vendor relying on the other, they have more of a vested interest, which means there is less chance of negotiations falling apart. It also means they can negotiate better prices and issues with the stamp duty thresholds."

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

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