Has anyone ever successfully homeswapped?

dasophster

Neas, let me clarify some things. Where on earth did I say we were entitled to a 5-7 bedroom property? According to the rules (that to be fair, we did NOT make) we are entitled to a 4 bedroom property or at minimum a 3 bedroom with additional reception room that can be used as a bedroom. All our children are the same gender so that makes a difference perhaps. Also we are willing to accept any property type at all not just houses.

It would be understandable if we were pushed into looking for a 5-7 bedroom place that we would never find such a thing in the social sector on homeswap or anything else but there are actually quite a lot of 4 bedroom or 3 bedroom parlour houses in London and Essex on the whole. Before you assume anything we aren't on benefits at all either, my husband works full time and anyone could have got our property to begin with if they applied. We were on the council waiting list for over three years and it just so happened that because this development was in another borough and people in our old borough don't ever like to move anywhere outside the area, plus the fact most properties here are flats, virtually no-one bid for this when it came up on the council website. We were not handed this place on a plate by any means. Our rent isn't cheap either. We pay more for our rent than many pay for their mortgages but due to my OH being self employed and various other factors it would be really hard to get a mortgage now. We did used to be homeowners but couldn't afford the mortgage repayments and had to sell, at a massive loss which swallowed up our savings but we had no choice as we would have ended up repossessed. Before we got this place on the bidding system we lived for three years in a very bad area in a very small three bedroom HA house run by the absolute worse HA in London, the windows were nearly falling out, the gardens were so dangerous our kids couldn't play in either of them, there were huge but inaccessible gaps under all the walls so we were overrun with mice a lot of the time and our radiators fell off the walls due to the plaster being so flaky so we had to pen them in with furniture to stop the children being crushed by them.

In the past we were able to accept a 3 bedroom or 2 bedroom with additional reception (again their rules, not ours) but we still had to deal with the same number of time wasters and the fact people just don't want to move into a flat, only a house even if they live in a flat at the moment and they have far more chance of moving if they accepted a flat again. Many want to downsize to a 3 bedroom too but a 3 bedroom house with a nice garden, which just isn't realistic in the London area where statistically a lot more housing is flats or maisonettes. One of the women who messed up around kept saying how she would be doing us a 'massive favour' by accepting our place as hers was a house, yet her place was in really bad repair to the extent that there were exposed nails sticking out all over the place, dangerous electrical work etc these were all things we were willing to fork out on getting fixed even though we couldn't really afford to but in the end her HA said she had to put things right before the move could be finalised and she said no (we even offered to pay she still said no) Xx

dasophster

isthatreduced wrote: »

I home swapped from a new build 2 bed HA to a 2 bed council house.
This was 14 years ago and it was very smooth.
I moved from England back to Scotland,the house was in a bad state but it was in Scotland and I wanted to move desperatly.We van shared(my uncle drove the van) and I am still here now(planning on buying it this summer).I was only on the register a few weeks when the guy contacted me.He came down to see it and I sent my Aunt and uncle over to have a look to see if it was worth me coming up to view it.On a low income it took me a long time to get it to how I want it and the man who exchanged had a great new property with quality carpets on down 18 months and I got crap.I was happy because I got a bigger house and garden in a good area same amount of bedrooms.
It all happened so fast I thought it would be really difficult he was the first and only person to contact me after a few weeks of being on the homeswap scheme.Guess I am saying dont give up hope it can happen,try to just put it to the back of your mind and live your life.
I see people advertising to homeswap on Gumtree,might want to look there.Good luck

Hi

Thanks for sharing your experience . Glad to know you got there in the end with fixing up your new place and are now looking to buy it. We do put our ad on Gumtree all the time with photos and keep renewing it, we've had quite a few reasonable replies but the biggest bunch of timewasters are on there too some of which have been quite funny-bloke with a 1 bedroom flat under a motorway flyover in Birmingham telling us how we should be grateful and accept his property and its really big and can fit a large family no problem, and this lady who was homeless and said she had nowhere to swap into but we should give her our flat and make ourselves homeless :rotfl:. We get quite a few replies from homeswapper as well but our own housing association's homeswap website/service is useless we contacted them tried to change some details on it two years ago and they still haven't changed them. We've had no replies from there for over two years anyway as I think most people have up on it a while ago xx

Dovah_diva

I did a recent mutual exchange going from a three bed to a two bed (by choice) 7 years ago. The exchange went very smoothly, even if the person living here hadn't bothered to clean in months! Been very happy in our home for 7 years now.

lindsloo

Many years ago when living in HA I did a successful swap, I have friends who have also been lucky. Have you tried netmums and Facebook groups? I'm not sure if this is even allowed but there is a trend of people redecorating their place to a high standard and offering a cash incentive when swapping. I actively searched through the swap list, contacting everyone on the list.

Good luck

squinty

lindsloo wrote: »

there is a trend of people redecorating their place to a high standard and offering a cash incentive when swapping.
Good luck

Its my understanding that it is illegal to offer or to accept money for a mutual exchange.

SailorSam

We moved years and years ago, i must have only been about 10. We were in a 2bed flat on the nice side of the estate and the people we swopped with were in a 3bed semi but on the scruffy part of the estate. The old man and woman we swopped with wanted to move 'cos their daughter was a couple of doors away from us, and my Mum wanted the house with more space. When the 'right to buy' came in we bought it and then sold probably 10yrs later.
Before we bought my Mum tried to do a swop with someone in Nth Wales were my Nan & Grandad was but anything she liked the people didn't want to come to Liverpool.

carefullycautious

I have exchanged twice (3 bed to 3 bed and 3 bed to 2 bed) but not through home swapper. My recent move (2bed to 1 bed) was a downsize through a transfer (bidding system) although we were on home swapper as well.

In the past I found that putting an advert into the local free paper of the area I wished to move to generated the most replies as a lot of people who are not computer savvy were then able to reply and leave details on my home phone.

Also place ads in local shops that you want to move to. Its surprising how word gets around and someone will know someone who may want your area/flat etc

Good luck

AsknAnswer2

I'm the same. I'm looking for a swap to a specific area for work reasons yet people who are nowhere near where I am looking to move to flood my ads with responses.

One woman in particular responded. She wasn't where I wanted to be but near enough that I could commute. She said she wanted to move to my area to be near sick family, and I got a little excited. Till I saw that she had responded on another ad that she wanted to be near their area cos her mother was there terminally ill (this other area was at the other end of the country in relation to where I am) and another in a completely different area, citing exactly the same thing. So either the woman has 3 mothers dotted around the country who are all terminally ill and can't make up her mind which of them she wants to live near to, or she's lying for reasons that only she knows.

dasophster

AsknAnswer2 wrote: »

I'm the same. I'm looking for a swap to a specific area for work reasons yet people who are nowhere near where I am looking to move to flood my ads with responses.

One woman in particular responded. She wasn't where I wanted to be but near enough that I could commute. She said she wanted to move to my area to be near sick family, and I got a little excited. Till I saw that she had responded on another ad that she wanted to be near their area cos her mother was there terminally ill (this other area was at the other end of the country in relation to where I am) and another in a completely different area, citing exactly the same thing. So either the woman has 3 mothers dotted around the country who are all terminally ill and can't make up her mind which of them she wants to live near to, or she's lying for reasons that only she knows.

We have had some of those weirdos too! What is wrong with people? This one woman in wood green kept insisting our flat would be perfect for her and her family despite her having a severely disabled son according to her as who needed a specially adapted ground floor property. I did ask her about this but she said as long as there was a lift it was fine. I then spied on her ad comments for a bit and she was gushing to this other lady how excited she was to be moving to a 4 bedroom house in Hertfordshire and it had all gone through. Yet the next day after posting that she was asking when we could view our place and if we had more pictures. She had taken several other potential swappers on a wild goose chase just like us I really think she just liked to view different types of properties as a hobby. Another lady contacted us with three different alias and three different properties at different times, but she used the same email address with the name of her original alias on it. Very shifty!

Also had this one who kept harassing us about our Gumtree ad only interested in when they could come to view and wouldn't give us any info about their property just told us it was a new-build only built about 5 years back and overlooked a certain park in North East London. They finally gave us a postcode and we looked it up and their house was not only 1/4 mile from said park with no view of it at all and not only that but their house was a Victorian terrace. I then put their postcode into a homeswap website and the woman in question (and it was the same woman and same email and monile number) stated she wanted a 3 bedroom council house in Islington, no HA properties, nothing in any other area and must have a garden. Again I think she just wanted to spy on our flat for some bizarre reason! Xx

dasophster

carefullycautious wrote: »

I have exchanged twice (3 bed to 3 bed and 3 bed to 2 bed) but not through home swapper. My recent move (2bed to 1 bed) was a downsize through a transfer (bidding system) although we were on home swapper as well.

In the past I found that putting an advert into the local free paper of the area I wished to move to generated the most replies as a lot of people who are not computer savvy were then able to reply and leave details on my home phone.

Also place ads in local shops that you want to move to. Its surprising how word gets around and someone will know someone who may want your area/flat etc

Good luck

Fantastic suggestions thanks! I'm also asking around family and friends especially those whom I know happen to know a lot of people who aren't retirement age yet but several of their kids have left home and thus they have surplus bedrooms they really don't need xx