Brought to you by: Breez DeGuzman

Home prices skyrocketed during the last decade; sadly, to the point where the distance between what people earned and how much a property cost was grossly out of proportion, when compared to any other period of time in recent history. With the crash of the market, this bubble burst and tons of houses were foreclosed and thousands of others were put up for sale in a desperate attempt by homeowners to cut their losses before it was too late. As the market continued to spiral downward, fewer people were interested in buying something with a value that was dropping, and this caused the market to continue falling.

One way that homeowners are taking back control of the situation is through home exchanges. This is a process of searching through a list of homes that are potential trades, finding one that you would like, and hoping that the homeowner will feel the same way about your property. When it works, paperwork is drawn up, loans are paid off and financing obtained, and the home trade is made. Because the homes are typically around the same price, there is little loss with the home swap and you can eliminate other expenses that tend to come with the purchase of a new home.

One major difference when you have a home for sale versus one for trade is the cost. You save money by not having to pay a commission to a real estate agent. Instead, the two homeowners will do all the work and search out a situation where both parties want to swap houses. Once an agreement to trade homes looks imminent, a real estate lawyer should be called in to ensure that the homes exchange transaction goes smoothly and that neither party will suffer any losses.

On the website, www.craigslist.com, there has been an explosive growth in people who are interested in trying to exchange homes. Either their houses are for sale yet have had no interested buyers, or they want out of the whole real estate market. This increase on craigslist is about thirty percent, which is a sizeable jump upwards and really shows that there are many people out there with homes they can’t afford, or who want to make a change but can’t in the current situation, or are not happy with the traditional way of doing things. It is very likely that home swapping will become even more popular over the next few years as people come to realize that the market can be controlled by them, and not the other way around.