Homeowners trading places

Frustrated by slowdown, some are hoping to escape the market's malaise in a creative way - by swapping their properties

After Arthur Broadhurst retired, he and his wife expected to spend their golden years doting on grandchildren. They planned to sell one of their two homes in Florida and buy a place near their daughter's family in Wayland, where they would live part of the year. Then the real estate market seized. Buyers got scarce. The Broadhursts' Florida property sat on the market.

So Broadhurst, a former insurance CEO, got creative. If he couldn't sell his home for what he wanted, he figured, maybe he could trade with someone in the same predicament. He placed online ads looking for an elusive target: Someone who owns property within 100 miles of Wayland and wants to move to his three-bedroom, two-bathroom Palm Coast, Fla., house, which has a solar-heated pool and a gas fireplace.

Broadhurst has joined a growing group of property owners who are trying to circumvent the real estate market, conventional mortgages, and the national economic mess by going straight to people who might want to barter their land or home. They're posting ads on Boston's Craigslist, on a board originally intended for short-term housing trades - seeking, in recent weeks, to swap a Connecticut house for a place in Lowell or southern New Hampshire, land on Martha's Vineyard for a condo in the South End, a house in Wellesley for a place in Boston, a Florida address for a North Shore home - and on new websites created for potential home-swappers.

"This particular mortgage crisis that we've got now has stalled everything," Broadhurst said from his home in Florida. "It occurred to me that all these people still want to come down here but they can't because they can't sell their houses."

This is not the kind of house swap in which frugal families wanting to vacation in Italy offer to trade their New England Colonials for Tuscan villas for a week. These trades are permanent, with deeds and mortgages signed over. Some potential swappers, like Broadhurst, have no mortgages. Others do, but are willing to make financial agreements with another owner for property worth more or less than theirs. Nearly every day new listings pop up on the Web posted by people stuck in the housing market.

Paul Falzone of Hull got stuck with a house in Cohasset after he tried to make some money in the real estate market, back when things were good. "Three years ago, I said, 'Even the stupidest people I know are buying houses and making money. I'm going to do it,' " he recalled.

So he bought the Cohasset house and poured $300,000 into renovations. But by the time he was ready to sell and reap his profit, the market had ceased its exuberant romp and buyers weren't coming around. Now Falzone just wants to get out without losing too much money. The house is of no use to him - he and his family are already established in Hull - so he'd like to swap it for property he can use for business or pleasure.

"I would trade for a chalet, I would trade for land," Falzone said. "I'd pick a puppy at this point. I'm throwing like $3,300 a month at the thing."

Finding a match for his house is not unlike his day job, running dating services around the country. He's had bites from Florida and Hawaii, and though he spent an afternoon daydreaming about warm winters and beach breezes, he decided he wasn't interested.

It's not clear whether Massachusetts property owners have successfully swapped real estate, although successful trades have played out in other parts of the country, where the market seems more open to housing trades. Realtors blame the traditionalism of New England, and the relative strength of sought-after communities around Boston, at least compared with other parts of the country. Many real estate agents contacted hadn't heard of the practice.

"It's just another nonconventional way that someone can possibly sell their home," said Mary Ann Figoni, a Wellesley realtor. "It's good to be as open-minded and creative as you can be."

For months, Figoni posted an ad for a client trying fruitlessly to sell a condo in an over-55 development. The owner, who declined to be interviewed, wanted to move but couldn't sell her space. It didn't help that the developer still had new units on the market. Although there were nibbles, nothing appealed to the owner.

Meanwhile, Figoni got queries from other homeowners who asked if she would help them find someone willing to swap with them.

"It's not an easy thing to do," she said.

Rudy Cataldo owns a three-family house in North Andover and lives on the top-floor apartment. But he's divorced, his children are gone, and he'd like to live closer to Boston. Cataldo is a realtor and he knows the realities of the market, so he's casually been advertising his property for a trade.

"Everyone is off to school and they're older now. I'm not as concerned with the school systems as I once was," he said. "There may be someone in the city that has a house or condo they're having trouble selling."

In Cambridge, Rozann Kraus and her partner are sadly considering leaving the house they bought 17 years ago so they can move into a two-family, with an apartment for the 91-year-old mother of Kraus's partner. Kraus, who wants to stay in Cambridge, recently posted an ad on Craigslist, looking for a swap, and the next day she heard from a nearby family who live in a two-family but no longer want the responsibility of tenants. She and the potential swapper are in the early stages of investigating each other's house.

"I just think the times demand this kind of thoughtfulness and creativity," she said.

Meanwhile, Broadhurst and his wife are still looking for a swap that will let them live much of the year near their two Wayland grandchildren, ages 5 and 7. They've had a handful of serious inquiries. He flew to Massachusetts last year and visited one house he liked so much that he was ready to start the paperwork to trade. Then he learned that the owner had $100,000 worth of credit card debt and couldn't qualify for a mortgage.

"You've got all of the problems that you have when you're trying to buy a house," he said. "But you've got the complication that only a certain number of houses are available to you because they are people who happen to want your house."

Broadhurst bemoans the lack of information about house-swapping. The drop in home values presents another obstacle. Many people have mortgages as large as - or larger than - the value of their house, leaving them without any value to trade. But Broadhurst is still waiting for a match that sticks.

"We're retired," he said. "I'm not in a hurry."

Kathleen Burge can be reached at kburge@globe.com.