What is a Home Swap?

What are home swaps, council exchanges and housing association exchanges? How do I find a Home Swapper?

Mutual Exchange

A mutual exchange is basically a home swap. with another tenant. It could be a council house exchange, flat exchange, bungalow, maisonette or any other property type. You can swap homes with any council tenant or Housing Association tenant in the UK providing they have the right to mutual exchange and want to swap homes with you.

You may wish to swap homes locally or to another part of the country, either way the hardest part about swapping homes is to find a home swapper.

You can either home swap with one tenant (home swapper), known as a direct exchange or you could try and find a three way house exchange. There is no limit to how many people you can have in your home swap, however the more people in the home swap, the more complicated it gets and the more likely it is to fail as you have more people who could change their mind. That being said three way mutual exchanges are becoming increasingly popular as they give you more ways of getting into the property you want. So don't just dismiss them as they are more troublesome!

The diagram below shows you how a Three way home swap works. A good three way matching tool on an mutual exchange website is on www.houseexchange.org.uk - it really takes the leg work out of finding a 3-way home swap.



This can of course work across many different locations or even all in the same street! The key is to ensure that everyone has looked around the properties and is happy with the move.

Once you have found somewhere you like you should arrange a viewing.

If you have someone who is interested in swapping homes, your home has to be appealing we have put together some handy information for you to help attract home swappers.

Council Exchanges are a fantastic way of moving as you get to choose where you want to live, you can take as long as you like looking for the house exchange that you want. The Home Swap team wish you all the best in finding your home swap and we do hope that this website gives you some information and handy tips for finding your house exchange and for when the day comes to actually swap homes and move in.