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Consider a house swap to beat slump

27/ 8/2008

A MARPLE estate agent is playing property matchmaker, as a way of beating the slump in the housing market.

Marple-based Scott Grayson, from Edward Mellor, is advocating ‘house-swapping’ to beat the slow-down. He has even dedicated a section of his branch to swapping and already has more than 50 interested clients.

As part of the process vendors market their properties in the usual way, including the compilation of a brochure and the completion of a HIP. Then Scott tries to match up the needs of each of his vendors to see if they would be a property match for each other.

If a match is found the vendors agree prices and the sales proceed in the usual way.

Since April Scott has completed nine ‘swaps’, in addition to more traditional sales. And he says swapping not only has the potential to breathe life into the market, but can make selling a house less stressful and much faster.

He said: "House-swapping is the perfect house sale. This way there isn’t the stress involved with having a house on the market for 12 months and there’s not the stress of having lots of people walking through your house. It really can be a pretty quick exercise."

Ultimately Scott believes it could become the preferred way of buying and selling houses.

IT specialist Martin Bradburn has just ‘swapped’ a four-bed detached house in Marple for a three-bed linked detached property in Offerton. Martin had been trying to sell his property for 14 months – without success. But after he was ‘matched’ with a family who were interested in his property, he says the process was faster and less stressful than being part of a ‘chain’.

He said: "In lots of ways it’s the same, but it’s quicker and easier because there are only two people involved."

Scott said: "As the market slowed we had 120 people on the market and 50 per cent of them were saying they were not going to look for their next one until they had sold their own. One day we looked at all their details and we saw the potential."

Scott says the practice is particularly suited to areas such as Marple, where there are a proportionately higher number of over-55s looking to down-size and growing families looking for more space.