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Press Release
Click here to view all press releasesInterest rates misery leads house swapping boom
HOUSE SWAPPING is set to take off in the UK as cash-strapped Britons aim to cut moving costs following a 1% rise in interest rates in the past 12 months.
Listings for house swaps have more than trebled in the past six months according to research by Freeads.co.uk, the UK's largest independent classified site, as increasing numbers of canny property owners are switching on to the fact that by swapping homes they are exempt from stamp duty.
The site now regularly hosts more than 250 ads every day from people wanting to exchange properties, up from just over 100 on average at the end of 2006. Freeads.co.uk hosts around 60,000 unique ads each day.
On top of this the number of visitors to the home exchange category has risen ten-fold in the same period - indicating the house swapping trend is likely to escalate further, according to Freeads chief executive Duncan Horton.
He said: "The average homeowner faces costs of between £15,000 and £20,000 when moving after you take into consideration solicitors' fees, estate agent fees, insurance, removal costs, storage and stamp duty - which represents the single biggest expense in the moving process.
"House swapping is a popular way of taking cheap holidays in the USA and increasingly in the UK - made famous in recent Jude Law / Cameron Diaz film 'The Holiday' - however the tide is turning so that rather than solely short term swaps people are looking to make them long-term or even permanent."
Key trends:
- Londoners are looking to get out of the city: nearly a third (28%) of the properties offered for swapping on Freeads are for properties in Greater London and more than half of these are for people looking to escape the city rather than relocate in capital
- Surrey and Hampshire are the most requested areas to move to by house swappers
- Southern and south-western homeowners are most likely to take part in house swapping, with Bristol, Plymouth and Southampton accounting for almost 40% of the overall houseswapping ads on Freeads
- Residents in Manchester, Hull and Leeds lead the way in the house-swapping trend in the north - the majority of which are looking to stay in the same region