Michael Pastushkov, owner of besthouseswap.com, said the main difference between old-fashioned home buying and online swapping is "you cut out the middle man," often saving agent commissions.

But real estate agents use the method too.

Jose Bribiesca, owner of JB Realty Group Inc., in North Miami Beach, said that during Florida's housing boom sellers could name their price for their property, he said. There was no need to trade.

"Now there is huge supply and a low demand," he said.

He specializes in trading, posting his ads on Craigslist and other sites. He takes a commission if he is able to trade a property.

Some people use home swapping to buy vacation homes.

Myra Powell and her husband traded their beach property in North Carolina for a mountain house in that state "only because we couldn't sell it through it the normal way."

Powell, 56, who owns a social work staffing company and lives Wilson, N.C., said trading her own home took three months and a lot of negotiations.

"The trade process was much more about negotiation, relationship building with the party you are trading with," she said. "It was a problem solving process."

She is now friends with the couple who bought her home for $410,000. She ended up buying their home for $405,000. Both parties took mortgages on the homes.

Karen Rosenfarb, who traded with Powell, said the best way to trade is to be open as to location. Rosenfarb and her husband wanted something on the water anywhere from South Florida to North Carolina. They settled on Powell's home on Emerald Isle.

"It gives people another creative way of moving on without having to wait," Rosenfarb said.

Peek, who had been battling breast cancer, had been living in Georgia with her daughter. Her husband was living in central Florida during the week and traveling home to Atlanta for the weekends. She originally wanted to sell the home, but was willing to do a trade. She traded her $340,000 home to Bou for a home appraised at $380,000 in the Orlando suburb of DeLand, but she did an even trade so didn't pay anything over.

The Bous and Peeks drew up contracts, had home inspections and they signed a purchase agreement, promising $1,000 if either party backed out. They both used the same Florida mortgage company, which sped up the process. She looked at the new home the last week of April 2008 and they closed a month later.

Now, she is looking to trade the DeLand property and move to the Florida Panhandle, where she and her family were before moving to Georgia.

She has a listing on Stroka's site and another on goswap.com, but she is not willing to swap it at half price -- that's how far prices have dropped in her neighborhood in the last year. So unless she gets a comparable swap, she'll wait.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.