It never ceases to amaze me how creative people can be when it comes to selling property, and as I say regularly, I've been in the real estate industry for a long time! The most recent example I've seen when it comes to innovative selling methods gaining popularity is the house swap.
Although this idea is, for the most part, attributed to holiday makers, there is an increasing number of people who are having difficulties selling their homes who are looking at house swapping as a method of sale. The idea behind house swapping was originally developed as an affordable holiday option, and homeowners from different places would swap their homes for a short period of time. This obviously requires you to find a house matching your holiday plans and vice versa, and the need for matching home requirements is even greater. This newly emerging trend of permanent house swapping is based on the same idea (homeowners switch places), but the end result is that each owner buys the other person's home. This method of sale is mostly occurring in the hardest hit markets around the world, and in particular the concept has taken hold in the UK.
A good method of sale brings together motivated buyers and sellers, and this is exactly what the permanent house swap is doing – just in a very different way to the conventional methods we are more used to seeing. Although it's unlikely to become as popular in Australia due to our more resilient property market, for areas where there is an influx of inventory and selling is proving difficult, permanent house swapping is a great option. And as someone in the real estate industry, I always find it fascinating and exciting to see the new ways people are coming up with to successfully transact property.