Blogs

On The Principle of Sunk Cost

I often find myself applying the Principle of Sunk Cost to many financial problems I encounter.

The Principle, sometimes paraphrased as “don’t chase good money after bad”, holds that certain financial costs cannot be recovered once they are incurred and therefore should not affect future actions or decisions.

A common example (Wikipedia) is that of purchasing a movie ticket and realizing shortly into the movie that it is… Continue

Added by David Moskowitz on June 24, 2009 at 6:05pm — No Comments

How equity affects a swap and why it’s not always what you expect

I highly recommend letting the lawyers or mortgage professionals handle the details of financing a house swap. So first the disclaimer:

Note: The information contained on this site is not intended to offer legal or financial advice. Please consult a lawyer or financial planner for any legal or financial questions.

And let me state one more time, when we talk about a swap, we are talking about two simultaneous sales, recently termed a "reciprocal sale". Swap is… Continue

Added by David Moskowitz on August 23, 2008 at 2:00pm — 2 Comments

No it’s really 20,000 – Huckabee

I was watching Fox news Sunday night while eating dinner. Around 7:30 PM, my attention was suddenly jostled away from my frozen dinner (dieting…), by an advert for the upcoming Huckabee (as in Mike Huckabee, former presidential candidate) which will feature a segment on house swapping. While I did watch the Simpsons during the 8PM hour, I recorded Huckabee and watched it later on (since I hadn’t been approached for the show, which usually means expect some onlinehousetrading… Continue

Added by David Moskowitz on March 30, 2009 at 7:00pm — 13 Comments

8,000 Swaps per Month

Nice front page piece (at least online) in the Christian Science Monitor.

A bit short for the amount of research I know went into the story, but at least they tracked down Jerry and Sherry again.

Also, we finally have a statistic regarding how many swaps are taking place:

"But such deals are gaining momentum. Some 8,000 swaps take place every month, estimates Danielle Babb, a real estate analyst and dean of business at Andrew Jackson University in… Continue

Added by David Moskowitz on March 24, 2009 at 6:00am — 2 Comments

Helpful advice about posting on Domuswap.com.

THE PURPOSE OF THIS BLOG POST:

I'm starting to write this Blog Post about how to use Domuswap effectively, from start to finish, based on my experience with using the site. I view this post as a work-in-progress. I will start by trying to include as much helpful info. as possible. I will add info. as I think of it: scribbled notes at my desk; comments or suggestions that I hear anywhere; links that I find online; ANYTHING THAT MIGHT HELP! I may inadvertently leave out things or I may need… Continue

Added by JH on March 18, 2009 at 12:55pm — 7 Comments

The Latest Publicity Wave

It seems like every time I turn on my computer this month, I receive notice of some other new feature on house swapping. And many of these are high profile pieces (ex. Time, CBS Evening News, MSBNBC.com). Is the growth of swapping finally going exponential?

While Domuswap has not been the main feature of any of these recent articles, I can watch the additional traffic that these, nevertheless, generate. The statistics seem to imply that the growth is still linear, and tends to slow… Continue

Added by David Moskowitz on March 8, 2009 at 9:23am — No Comments

Trend Watch: Home Buyers Insurance

The title of this post may be misleading. I am not referring to home warranty coverage or homeowners insurance coverage. I am referring to insuring buyers against the financial down side of purchasing your home. In financial terms, this is called hedging.

I am beginning to see creative home sellers, mainly builders so far, offering some sort of hedge to prospective buyers. The first I saw of this was in a new condo development in Sarasota that simply offered to pay interest on the… Continue

Added by David Moskowitz on March 31, 2008 at 2:00pm — No Comments

Domuswap User Survey

We recently sent out a brief survey to many of our users, specifically those users that have used the Domuswap inquiry system and have been in contact with other owners. We wanted to find out how successful the contacts have been, what were the results, and what roadblocks were encountered in the process.

We received (and are still receiving) lots of good feedback. My sincere thanks goes out to everyone who participated.

The responses we received range from “your site… Continue

Added by David Moskowitz on April 9, 2008 at 2:00pm — No Comments

Three-Way Swapping

Earlier this month, we rolled out an enhancement to our three-way swapping feature. Our home page describes this as “one of our most exciting features yet”.

Domuswap has always calculated three-way match possibilities; we call them “extended” matches. Three-way swapping greatly expands the number of potential matches for any property.

In a nutshell, in a three-way swap:

Owner A wants Owner B’s House
Owner B Wants Owner C’s House
Owner C…

Continue

Added by David Moskowitz on May 1, 2008 at 2:00pm — No Comments

Can’t Sell Your House? Swap It!

This article originally appear in Wall Street Profit News on February 2, 2008

Can’t Sell Your House? Swap It!

By David Moskowitz, creator of Domuswap.com

I don’t need to remind the readers of this site about the current housing crisis.

Housing is considered a basic human need, along with food and clothing. By the way the housing market has shut down you would think we were talking about tulips.

You might not say the… Continue

Added by David Moskowitz on May 9, 2008 at 2:00pm — No Comments

The Real Secret to Finding a Swap

Want to find a swap?

Well, here is the secret…

Trade Up In Price!

It is as simple as that.

There is currently a very large percentage of users on Domuswap looking to trade down. You’ve probably encountered this in some of the inquiries you may have made. “Sorry, we are only looking to trade down”.…

Continue

Added by David Moskowitz on June 23, 2008 at 2:00pm — 1 Comment

Why are you trading?

I’ve said in recent news interviews that I think the severity of the housing downturn is hurting even swapping. This may seem counterintuitive, since swapping would seem to work best when owners are having trouble selling outright. However, for a swap to occur there needs to be balance. What do I mean? Simply, for a swap to take place we need an even transaction (same price houses) or one owner must trade up while the other must trade down. The problem in today’s market is finding the owner… Continue

Added by David Moskowitz on July 21, 2008 at 2:00pm — No Comments

Welcome to Domuswap Users, the social network for property swapping

In 2006, Time magazine name You their person of the year (Link). Now Domuswap creates a web site for you as well: Domuswap Users.

This site is all about you: the Domuswap user. Create any content you want. Post your properties in any format. International property owners, you are now first class citizens.

When we released Domuswap back in June 2007, we called it "an online real estate… Continue

Added by David Moskowitz on September 13, 2008 at 9:30am — No Comments

House Swapping on Oprah

Well, Sort of.

Oprah today did a brief interview with two owners involved in a swap. I didn't see the show, but listened in to it via cell phone, and didn't recognized the two names of the owners involved.

The segment was in the context of a program on strategies to deal with the current economy. In the little of it I heard , it left more questions and confusion that before. There was no "expert" to describe the process and rationale. Oprah seemed genuinely intrigued but… Continue

Added by David Moskowitz on October 8, 2008 at 8:00pm — 2 Comments

How to post properties to Domuswap.com

Unlike the old Domuswap.com, the new platform allows you to post in a more free form mode.

You should enter your property in the Forum for your specific state by starting a new discussion in that foum.

To begin, click on your state on the home page, then click "Add a discussion".

Try you to the most relevant information in the title of the posting (ex. city, price, bedrooms, key feature , etc).

You can include pictures in the body of the email, as… Continue

Added by David Moskowitz on October 26, 2008 at 7:00pm — 13 Comments

Welcome to House Swapping, Version 2.0

Let’s cut to the chase.

What is going on? Where is the old site? What the….

Simply put, it’s time for a change. It’s time to embrace Web 2.0 and community driven content.

When I began Domuswap in June 2007, there were a few swapping sites out there, none of them gaining much traction or publicity. I believe we created a better site than what was out there, but most… Continue

Added by David Moskowitz on October 26, 2008 at 8:00pm — 35 Comments

Introducing the Domuswap Network

In order to greater promote house swapping success stories, we've created the Domuswap Network.

If you own a house swapping or related real estate web site, we'd love to feature you on our home page.

Member sites will receive a link on our home page and the ability to post features blog entires on our home page as well.

To join, simply sign up for a Domuswap.com account, then place a Domuswap badge on your site's home page. The badges are customizable and can be… Continue

Added by David Moskowitz on November 10, 2008 at 6:44pm — 1 Comment

Merry Christmas from Domuswap

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Added by David Moskowitz on December 25, 2008 at 8:30pm — 1 Comment

How To Make Swapping Work

We’ve come a long way in the two or so years since the emerging of swapping on the internet. Through extensive media coverage, I must think a larger percentage of the population, or at least home owners and sellers with their eyes open for such stories, are aware of swapping. However, the results haven’t proved as promising. Sure, there are a few anecdotes of swaps that have taken place. These more often than not, took place on Craigslist, with several on Domuswap and Onlinehousetrading. I am… Continue

Added by David Moskowitz on January 4, 2009 at 11:59am — 5 Comments

The Financial Crisis

Like it or not, as home sellers, we are all entangled in the current US financial crisis. Indeed, housing is the root of all the problems we are seeing.

How is this crisis affecting you?

A main issue I see is the related credit crisis. As lenders cannot gage the bottom of the market, or more precisely, can’t put a value on prospective loans, the credit market has dried up. This is the case for both commercial and residential lending. If we to see a bottom, any bottom,… Continue

Added by David Moskowitz on September 28, 2008 at 2:58pm — 1 Comment

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