August 11, 2008
Yes People Are Trading. Thom Did It Twice.
Local Tampa News interviews with Domuswap's creator and a two time house trader.
Thom Carter knows a little bit about selling a house. After years of working in the military, he figures he's bought and sold about 17 homes. But he was having trouble selling his last home in Largo.
"At the time, the realtor was terrible," says Carter. "And terrible not because she was a bad realtor, but because the market was so bad. You can't sell these days."
After only having a couple of people walk through his home, Carter decided to try a different way to sell the house. He went online and found someone willing to swap their home for his.
Carter met his initial match through the Web site domuswap.com.
Check out the full story online: Can't sell your house? Trade it!
May 29, 2008
CNBC Sees the Trend
Domuswap creator David Moskowitz was interviewed live on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street".
May 2008
Money Magazine covers home swapping and Domuswap
House Swapping was included in Money Magazine's May 2008 issue as one of the "extreme" methods of selling your house in the current market.
Within four days of posting their home on Domuswap, Sherry Crosslin, 53, and James Ray, 63, of Hampton Va. were contacted by a prospective buyer. And nine weeks later, the deal was closed.
They also quote another Domuswap user
Thom Carter tried "a little bit of everything," including For Sale By Owner, when he put his Florida home on the market last year. Frustrated by the lack of results, Thom decided to give home swapping a try. Within weeks he was contacted by other swappers, one luckily in Florida, where he wanted to stay. While he got $10,000 less then he wanted, he paid $16,000 less than asking on the swap.
Check out the article For Sale by Any Means in Money Magazine May 2008 or view it online at money.cnn.com .
May 25, 2008
Trading Spaces: Yours for Mine?
Myrtle Beach Sun News feature on house swapping
Geoff Hudson, a Cherry Grove real estate investor, is trying to unload his property in an unconventional way. He and other sellers frustrated by a lack of buyers in today's sluggish real estate market are looking to swap property with other sellers - an "I'll buy yours if you buy mine" strategy.
"Obviously with housing sales and the current supply that's out there, if you want to sell something, you've got be creative at this point," Hudson said. "I thought I'd throw it out there and see what would pop up."
"The market is causing a lot of people to look at this as an option," said David Moskowitz, creator of DomuSwap. "A lot of people are looking at, 'I can't sell. What's the next best thing?'"
Read the full story on the web: Housing market forces some to find alternatives
May 16, 2008
Match.com for Houses
Hmm. I like the comparison.
Think of it as match.com for houses. What does a two-story house in common with a condo in Uptown? Both owners are listing their homes on housing swap Web sites. Why? Homeowner Drew Harriss said, "It?s clearly a slower market. We?re trying to think of creative ways to perhaps sell the property."
Read the full story and see the video from WCNC in Charlotte North Carolina: Trouble selling your house? Try swapping
May 5, 2008
The "Plain Deal" on House Swapping
The Plain Dealer interviews Domuswap user Kelly Masarik, who is looking to swap her Florida condo for an Ohio home.
In March, Masarik posted an ad on Craigslist.com and put another on DomuSwap.com, a Web site focused on bringing home swappers together.
As of Tuesday, Masarik had received nearly 40 responses from interested sellers.Some didn't fit her needs. Others weren't keen on her condo. But a handful -- including a bed and breakfast, a farm and an executive home -- had some potential.
"Your property up here in Ohio may not be the ideal location. It may not be the ideal property," Masarik said. "But if it's going to get me close to where I want to be, then I'm willing to do that. And if mine is going to get you closer to where you want to live, maybe you're willing to make some concessions, too.
You can find the full story online: Homeowners fight real estate slump with online house-swapping
April 22, 2008
Get "The Story" on Permanent House Swapping
A radio interview with two Domuswap traders was broadcast nationally on "The Story with Dick Gordon"
Foreclosures are up nearly 60% from springtime last year, pushing people to get creative with how they buy and sell their homes. Sherry Crosslin and Jerry Stussman took a novel route: they swapped houses.
Don't miss this excellent and in depth feature. Listen In to The Story
2007 in Review
Domuswap makes 2007 Year In Review
Ok, it is not Time Magazine's year in review (maybe next year) but Domuswap was mentioned in Biz941, a Sarasota-Manatee Florida business publication.
Software developer David Moskowitz started Domuswap.com to facilitate property swaps for the Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte markets.
Check out this and the rest of the 2007 Sarasota business news at 2007 Year in Review
April 4, 2008
WXYZ 7: Detroit News Feature on Domuswap
Today's housing crunch is forcing many sellers to get creative if they want to sell their property. A new trend is pairing anxious sellers to help each other out.
Video: Home Swap
March 27, 2008
Boston News features Two Domuswap Traders
Congrats Sherry and Jerry on your successful swap.
With the continued slump in the real estate market, selling a house can be a real challenge.Sherry decided to try a new approach. She listed her home on several new house swapping websites. They pair up compatible homeowners so they can literally trade their properties. Sherry found her match, Jerry Stussman, on www.domuswap.com.
Read: Key To Selling House May Be "Swapping It"
March 17, 2008
NBC2 Fort Myers: Can't sell your home? Trade it
Fort Myers News Interviews Domuswap Creator
Frustrated Southwest Florida homeowners have found a new option in the real estate slowdown. People who say they just cannot sell their home are taking a different approach. They want to trade their house instead.
March 4, 2008
Finally, House Swapping has come back to Miami
Local news coverage feature on house trading and Domuswap.com
A person looking to move in or out of state to a new home runs the risk of not being able to sell in a slumping economy, but house swapping allows the seller to be matched up with another person who may be looking to buy and move to the seller's home city.
View the article and watch the video from WPLG Miami: House Swapping Way Around Slumping Market House Swapping Allows Homeowners To Trade Properties
February 24, 2008
Hiton Head Island Packet: Trading spaces takes on new meaning when homeowners switch properties
Local newspaper feature on house trading and Domuswap.com
When times get tough, creativity is the buzzword in the real estate world. When properties won't sell, some agents are looking to trade them instead. In some areas, trading is literally moving the market, real estate analysts say.
View the complete article on house trading.
February 1, 2008
CBS 2 News in LA features a Domuswap Success Story
Local Los Angeles news interview with Jerry Stussman, who swapped his California house for a Virginia property.
Watch it online: Can't Sell...? How About Swapping It?
January 31, 2008
Domuswap on Fox Business Network
David Moskowitz, creator of Domuswap.com, discusses house swapping on Fox Business Network's America's Nightly Scoreboard. Panelists included John "Bradshaw" Layfield and Russell Pearlman. Host David Asman comments "This is a facinating development...it shows we live in a country that can come up solutions. We don't need to look to the politicians in Washington to find those solutions."
January 31, 2008
Wall Street Jounal: I'll Buy Your House If You Buy Mine
While some form of bartering has been going on since the beginning of time, experts say they aren't aware of house swapping being done in previous down housing markets. The technology and access to it didn't exist several decades ago. The current model is based on new technology that enables computerized matching of a large number of properties and owners' swap criteria.
View the complete article at RealEstateJournal.com
December 6, 2007
TheStreet.com profiles house swapping and Domuswap
Your Home Not Selling? Swap It
Can't sell your home? Then trade it.
For those who are stuck with a house that just won't move in the current market, an extreme option is emerging: swapping the property with a seller in same position.
"I definitely see a need for this service right now," says David Moskowitz, founder of the Sarasota, Fla.-based DomuSwap. "There are people who have to move and they're really stuck in this market."
View the rest of the article online
September 10, 2007
Gulf Coast Business Review profiles Domuswap
If you are in the Tampa Bay area, you should be able to find the issue on newsstands all this week.
Trader Dave
A computer guru doubling as a homeowner tries to trade in the real estate slump.Moskowitz, whose day job the past few years has been running Infoblazer, a Sarasota-based software development and computer consulting firm he founded, has also been spending the past year or so trying to sell his house in Nokomis, about 15 miles south of downtown Sarasota.
No surprise, in the current market, he hasn?t fared too well. In response, Moskowitz used his computer skills to create a Web site for people who want to exchange a home, as opposed to buying or selling one. People such as himself ? he hopes to trade his home for a downtown Sarasota condo.
Call it an MLS for the truly upwardly mobile set. "This model is essentially no different than a dating service," says Moskowitz, who earned a bachelor's and a Master's degree in civil engineering and computer science from Carnegie Mellon University. "It's an idea whose time has come."
Read the full article (PDF 1.7 MB)
June 25, 2007
Sarasota Herald Tribune feature article on DomuSwap
RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE
Swap site helps sellers in time bindSARASOTA -- David and Anna Moskowitz decided to sell their Nokomis house in order to buy a downtown Sarasota condominium. But the couple worried that if they bought before selling their house, the sluggish realty market could strand them carrying two properties they could not afford.
So David Moskowitz, 40, a computer software developer and application architect, decided to use his skills to solve the dilemma. He developed a real estate trading Web site to try to find a seller of a downtown condo who might be willing to swap properties.
The result is a Web site called Domuswap.com that was unveiled recently at a real estate technology trade show in Sarasota.
"The software architecture is not dissimilar to that of dating Web sites," Moskowitz said.
Read the full article here
May 31, 2007: Multimedia from the Technology & Business Expo
Announcement
May 31, 2007
DEBUTING DOMUSWAP
Online Residential Real Estate Trading; The Future of Real Estate
Sarasota, Florida – May 31, 2007 - Infoblazer LLC. will be debuting its new real estate trading web site, DomuSwap.com at the 2007 District 13 Technology & Business Expo, Thursday, May 31, 2007 from 8:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m., at the Hyatt Sarasota 1000 Boulevard of the Arts.
About DomuSwap
DomuSwap is an online listing service exclusively for sellers of residential real estate who will consider an exchange of property. Unlike most other real estate search engines that focus exclusively on buyers finding houses, DomuSwap caters to sellers looking to also buy another house and who therefore may be interested in an exchange.
In a real estate market such as the current one, there are many more sellers than buyers, and therefore few offers and sales. Many of these sellers, however, are actually buyers needing to sell their existing homes before they can buy. Using computer based matching of seller specified criteria, DomuSwap can uncover possible trades among listings and expand the seller’s market to include many more potential customers
Infoblazer will be marketing DomuSwap nationally, so trades can be accomplished nationwide, as well as within the same market.
About Infoblazer
DomuSwap is developed by Infoblazer LLC. Infoblazer is a Sarasota based software development and consulting company, providing application development services to large corporations. Infoblazer’s founder, David Moskowitz, has consulted for companies such as General Electric, where his work was featured in a CBS 60 Minutes profile of GE CEO Jack Welch. David’s other products have also been profiled in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. David is also the Chairman of the Sarasota Java User Group and the creator of the XX Framework open source web development framework.
