Can't sell? Try swapping your home for another |
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"It's the exact same thing as a regular real estate transaction," Battiata says. "Nothing else changes."
Battiata warns that a swap deal doesn't automatically release homeowners from paying commissions to their real
estate agents. Most people who swap have already listed their home with an agent and may be obligated to pay them, even if they
find the buyer themselves.
"Usually, that seller is still going to pay commission if he's under contract with an agent," Battiata says. "It
all depends on the agreement with the agent. I have a program with sellers that if I list your home and you find a buyer, we charge
you much less in the way of commission. But most agents charge a standard percentage, regardless of where the buyer comes from."
The listing agreement will usually outline what happens in case of a homeowner-arranged sale.
But if you haven't already listed your house with a real estate agent, it's up to you to decide whether to hire one. While
Moskowitz says he doesn't tout DomuSwap as a way of bypassing agent fees, those that trade without an agent may have more wiggle room
as far as negotiating prices.
"That commission is going to come off the listing price and make the house easier to move, or it's going to go in your
pocket," he says.
Battiata, however, says it's unwise to proceed without some kind of expert help.
"Where people get into problems is when they're trying to do for-sale-by-owner transactions," Battiata says. "There's
tons of liability when transferring property."
At the very least, he says, an attorney specializing in real estate issues should be retained to make sure the sales
agreements comply with local laws.
All of these concerns are moot, however, if you can't find someone to trade with -- and negotiating a successful trade
can be tough. Runge says he's exchanged e-mails with many homeowners about swapping, but found that they only wanted certain types of
houses, or homes in specific neighborhoods.
"Nobody's flexible," he says. "They're just desperate and don't want to drop their price, so they try and swap to get what
they want, but they still want what they want. ... Sometimes I think you have less chance of swapping a home than you do of winning the
million-dollar lottery."
Moskowitz says he has no way of tracking exactly how many trades have been brokered through DomuSwap, but he knows of
about four that have taken place. The slumping real estate market is making it harder to swap, he added, because most traders want small,
affordable properties, rather than the high-dollar homes that seem to be everywhere on the site.
"We're seeing a lot of users who are really looking to downsize dramatically," Moskowitz says. "When you have a large
percentage of people who are only looking to downsize, you can't arrange trades. Right now, a lot of people might have foreclosure in the
backs of their minds. That's not the ideal scenario for trading."
One thing that might help generate more successful real estate trades is simply having more homes listed on swapping sites.
There are more than 4 million homes for sale in the U.S., but only 5,000 on DomuSwap, which is "a drop in the bucket," Moskowitz says.
Runge is still skeptical.
"Say there's a million houses listed," he says. "You have to want the one they have. They have to want the one you have. I
think the probabilities are a million times a million."
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