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News: House-swapping on the rise

Thu, 17 May 07

Frequent rate rises mean that interest in house swapping is set to soar in the UK, it has been claimed...

Classifieds website Freeads.co.uk said that listings for house swaps have more than trebled in the last six months.

This is something that the site puts down to more
property owners becoming aware that by swapping homes they are exempt from stamp duty.

The research found that nearly a third of
properties offered for swapping on the site are for properties in Greater London and more than half of these are for people looking to get out of the capital.

In addition, the number of visitors to the home exchange category has risen ten-fold over the same period, bringing the site to predict that its popularity will soar further.

Freeads chief executive Duncan Horton commented:

"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."

The Holiday featured Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet as an American and a British woman that decide to swap homes for two weeks.


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