Who is the Social Housing Regulator and why should you care?
The Regulator works with government, Housing Ombudsman and housing providers to make sure that social homes are safe, decent and sustainable.
The census is coming: Why is it Important?
A large-scale data collection exercise, the cencus influences how public services like GPs and green spaces are planned and funded.
Who is the housing ombudsman?
In our last blog post, we spoke about what an ombudsman is and how they can work with you to sort out issues with complaints across most areas of your life. This week we are talking specifically about the Housing Ombudsman, who is the last port of call for when communication breaks down following a complaints procedure. The Housing Ombudsman service is responsible for working out if a [...]
What is an ombudsman?
Sometimes organisations don’t behave as they should. In the worst cases, there are impartial bodies that can help deal with this.
What is community-led housing?
Here we’re giving you a breakdown of the different types of Community Led Housing schemes and how you can get involved within your own community.
Sarah Jayne Tells – Finding the Right Swap
We were lucky enough to talk again to Sarah Jayne about how she makes a swap on HomeSwapper smooth sailing.
Building Better, Making Our Streets Safer
Over the last 5 months you may have noticed new pop-up barriers for wider pavements and cycle lanes that have been put in place to take the strain off public transport and help people safely social distance while getting around. According to Cycling UK, 11,000 people have reached out to councils across England to support these temporary barriers, paving the way for these to become a more permanent change. Those [...]
Carl’s Swapper Story: Taking the perfect picture
Remember Carl? A few months ago we spoke with him on how he used HomeSwapper to swap across a few different properties to finally move to his family’s dream home in Dorset. When we chatted to Carl, he also gave us lots of advice on how to prepare your home for the kind of pictures that are going to get your house attention on HomeSwapper. Most homeowners use the [...]
Features you may not have seen
We’ve filled the HomeSwapper site with all the tools and features you need to swap your home – from our MultiSwap tool to our messaging function and match filters, we try to make using HomeSwapper as easy as possible for you. But aside from the main features, there are a few clever tools we want to draw your attention to for when you’re next using HomeSwapper to find your match. [...]
Following the rules on HomeSwapper
While we know that the majority of you use HomeSwapper well, we recently spoke with a swapper who told us that there are a few users out there who aren’t quite following the rules. So, we wanted to remind everyone how to best use HomeSwapper with a quick guide of the most important rules (and some general best practice too). Cash incentives Some people may offer you cash incentives [...]
Accessibility on HomeSwapper
Here at HomeSwapper we want to make sure that it’s as easy as possible to find the home you need. We know it can be frustrating when a property seems perfect, so you’ve started chatting to the other user, but then one missing specification means that you’re no longer a match and you both end up disappointed. On HomeSwapper, we’ve built in a lot of features that you can use [...]
Great advert examples on HomeSwapper
Writing a great advert could be the difference between a quick and easy swap and months spent looking for one. To get other people interested in your property, you'll need to tell them all the reasons you love being there. There are a lot of things you can do to make your advert as appealing as possible and it’s important to have a think about it from different angles - [...]
Writing a great advert for your home
Your advert is the first impression a potential swapper will have of your home, so it’s important that you make it great! The property description in the ‘additional information from tenant’ section on your advert is where you’ll have the chance to explain why somebody would want to swap tenancies with you. Key features Before you get started, have a think about the different features your property offers. Build [...]
How to make photography work for you
We want nothing more than to see you have a successful HomeSwapper journey. One of the key things that can help is how your advert looks - and there's nothing better for this than including some great photos of your home! So we've put together a simple guide to taking photos and making the most of your home: Give your house a spring clean Great photos could make all [...]