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Tag Your Belongings in Photos

As Stanley struggled get a complete picture of what had been in his home (shown above, before and after the fire), he felt that there could be an easier, faster and more thorough way to inventory household belongings. Existing online tools, it turned out, weren't much more than glorified spreadsheets.

Drawing on his background in Web programming, Stanley created DocuHome.com, which allows home owners to upload room photos, and tag furniture and other belongings much like tagging friends on Facebook. The tags are then collected into an inventory spreadsheet, where homeowners can enter values or any other notes about the item.

This information is stored on remote servers, which have the same security that banks use for online transactions, and can be accessed from anywhere. After the flood or the fire, homeowners can rest assured that the inventory list remains safe.

A basic pen-and-paper list stored in a safe deposit box can suffice as an inventory, but home purchases often happen more frequently than updates to the list. Digital records or software are another method but, they also require more administrative oversight than homeowners realistically devote to the task. There also is the added risk that the home disaster destroys the computer where the records are stored.

DocuHome is the first and only visual inventory system that incorporates tagged photos and stores all the information online. Stanley says that in the process of creating an inventory, homeowners might discover that they need more insurance than they are currently holding. He says that one of the hard-learned lessons from his experience was that his Malibu home was "heavily underinsured."

"There is really no way to be properly insured until you know the contents of your home," Stanley says.

For more on home insurance see these AOL Real Estate guides:

• Home Insurance: Know What You're Buying
• Secrets to Lower Home Insurance Premiums
• Condo and Homeowners Insurance Key Differences

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As spring selling season gets under way, some homeowners are opting for an unconventional route: house swapping. Even as the housing market defrosts this spring, sellers are on the lookout for creative ways to minimize their costs. Swapping offers several bottom-line benefits: there are few to no agents' fees, sellers can minimize their tax burden, and it's a way to leverage property that may be otherwise difficult to sell. On the downside, swappers face fewer choices and have to be prepared to finance the difference in property value if necessary.

Over the last few years, a handful of websites have sprung up to support swappers, including GoSwap.org, OnlineHouseTrading.com and DomuSwap.com. Craigslist operates a whole category for home trades. The small boom in swap and barter sites took hold at the height of the financial crisis two years ago and shows no sign of waning.


Swapping the Ocean for the Desert

Sergei Naumov, founder of GoSwap, says there are more than 30,000 listings on his website, most of which are concentrated in the southeastern states. Founded in 2006, the site started picking up steam in 2008 and traffic has yet to fall. He estimates the number of successful swaps to be in the thousands.

One of those success stories is Pam Farley, 58, who used GoSwap to trade her three-bedroom home in Osprey, Fla., for an adobe house near Santa Fe., NM. In late 2008, she and her husband were empty nesters, ready to move from their Florida home after 12 happy years. Their timing couldn't have been worse. The housing crisis was rippling across the state and qualified buyers were scarce. After sitting on their for-sale-by-owner listing for more than year, Farley decided to investigate a permanent house trade.

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"I listed on several swap sites, and every day I had someone emailing me," she says. "We made adventures out of visiting the potential houses. We went to New England, Idaho, and Oregon. It was cool because we got to see interesting parts of country."

Farley, a painter, knew she wanted to move to the southwest to work on her craft and kept returning to a listing in New Mexico. Willingness try a new location is common among swappers, says Naumov. "A lot of the swappers tend to be older. They are not as bound by where they are, and their criteria is very open," he says. "Many people will consider a swap in any state."

Controlling the Process

Bauwens, who has a degree in marine biology, is also open to what the swap universe might send her way. Part of her desire to move away from her Montana farm, where she has lived for 10 years, is to pursue better job opportunities in marine science. Her other motivation is simply to change the scenery.

"I turned 40 last summer and I am in the mindset that life is too short to not be where you want to be," she says. "I am excited to move and wipe the slate clean."

With bartering as a way of life among horse trainers, Bauwens views her swap as a natural step. By advertising her farm as a swap on Craigslist rather than listing it as for sale, she avoids paying a 6-8% broker's commission and gets to keep the details of the transaction to herself.

"When you list on the MLS, people expect you to lower the prices," she says about her farm, which was appraised for around $350,000 several years ago. "Being in a small town, once it's listed, people start talking."

Making the Deal

After mutual visits to New Mexico and Florida, Farley and her home swapper quickly agreed on a deal. The next step, drawing up the offer-to-purchase contracts, was at the heart of the swap.

Even as the word "swap" conjures the days of yore, the deal is in fact two simultaneous sales. Ideally, both transactions close on the same day to prevent one owner from holding two mortgages or properties. For primary residences of equal value that are swapped, there is no taxable gain. If there is a difference in price, sellers can exclude capital gains up to $250,000 for a single taxpayer and $500,000 for married couples. Swappers of investment properties or businesses may defer taxes through section 1031 of the IRS code.

Farley's deal took several weeks and many drafts of the contracts faxed back and forth. After a wrinkle in securing financing, she was able to get a loan with a local bank in New Mexico and close on the swap in 30 days. "When we were done, it was fair and good," she says. "We protected each other."

As Bauwens sorts through the first trade offers that she has received for her farm, she feels a swap will help ensure the farm goes to another owner who will enjoy it as she has. She renovated the farm house a few years ago, complete with stained-glass windows and old barn wood, and acknowledges that it will be hard to move. "I feel strongly that if you put effort out there, something will happen," she says. "You have to create the good karma and the right thing will come along."

Farley's experience underscores the human connection to home buying and selling that swapping provides.

"Trading puts the power back in the people's hands," she says. "It makes it a real partnership between people possible. They are not stuck in their homes and they can move forward with their lives."

Catherine New is a reporter for DailyFinance.com and Aol Huffington Post.

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A cracked foundation brings down the best structures--house or relationship. Even if your marriage hasn't progressed to The War of the Roses stage, with his-and-hers square footage, there's no doubt emotions run high around property issues.

The depressed housing market is magnifying that tension. "In an average divorce, the biggest asset is the home," says Evan Sussman, a divorce attorney in Beverly Hills, Calif. "People have lost value on on their homes, and they are unable to sell. The equity they had in the home is down."

In fact, nearly 40% of couples considering a divorce have postponed plans to split because of the economy, according to a recent survey of more than 1,000 couples by the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. The study also found that 12% of couples have had trouble paying a mortgage or experienced foreclosure.

2. Are your emotions clouding the bottom line? Strong emotions, especially the fear of financial insecurity, can undermine good decision making. Susan Pease Gadoua, a licensed therapist and divorce counselor in San Rafael, Calif., says that women tend to view the housing issue through an emotional lens whereas men see it as business transaction. It can get complicated when there is "the emotion of wanting to keep the house even when it is not always the best financial decision for the bottom line."

3. Can you stand living with your ex? For exes who continue to inhabit the same house, the keys are--no surprise--communication and managing expectations. "Discuss childcare or who is watching the kids, agreements around dating and how you will continue with bank accounts," Gadoua says. "Talk about things quickly when they come up."

4. Can you afford not to sell? If the bills keep coming and a foreclosure is imminent, unloading the place may be the only choice. Sellers can avoid the damage of a foreclosure with a short sale. With the lender's consent, homeowners sell the home for less than the outstanding balance of the mortgage. (Learn more about short sales.)

5. How will you split any proceeds from the sale? You are entitled to reimbursements for capital improvements or other home investments made with marriage-era earnings, says family-law attorney Sussman. Even if you don't hold the title to a property, your sweat equity and home improvements are worth something if you are compensated in a divorce proceeding.

Catherine New is a personal and consumer finance reporter for DailyFinance.com and Aol Huffington Post.

For more information about planning your finances and divorce, see the three-part series "Heading for a Divorce?" on AOL's sister site DailyFinance.com.

Part 1: First, Get Your Finances in Order
Part 2: Tally and Appraise Your Assets
Part 3: Determine Your Post-Split Expenses

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