Home Exchange

We are looking to exchange our council house and move to a new part of the UK. If you are a council or Housing Association tenant in the United Kingdom, looking for an exchange, please take a look to see if our home would be suitable for you.

We need a 2 bedroom House (or non-restricted bungalow. (Sorry no flats/maisonettes). We are open to considering many locations across England, Wales and Scotland.

ESSENTIAL FEATURES:

• Must allow pets.
• Must have a decent sized, secure garden (ideally with room for a 10ft Trampoline and a shed).
• 2-3 Bedrooms (3 can only be considered if under-occupancy allowed by your landlord).
• A shower is needed on medical grounds (over the bath is fine).

PREFERRED ADDITIONAL FEATURES:

• WC on both floors.
• Driveway or Off-Road Parking.
• Large Kitchen or Living Room with room for a dining table.
• Quiet/Semi-Rural small town community/area.
• Bonus points if there is a good home education community in the area (we are aware many won’t know much about this, we can do our own research).
• Close to a bus/train route (only 1 of us currently drives).

NOT BOTHERED ABOUT:

These items have little to no bearing on our suitability decisions regarding potential swaps.

• Pubs/Clubs etc. – we are middle aged and are not into the clubs/pubs scene at all, we rarely drink alcohol and prefer to socialise in other ways.
• Schools – Our child is Home Educated due to SEN needs and doesn’t cope well in mainstream school settings, so schools won’t really have much impact on our decision.
• Shopping Centres – Whilst they do have their uses, we are quiet people, preferring semi-rural settings and the outdoors. Having a shopping centre within say an hours drive is plenty close enough for us, as long as we have a couple of small local shops to get bread/milk etc. within walking distance.
• Decoration – Whist ideally we would prefer somewhere that is in good decorative order (we’ve spent a lot of time and money decorating our current home), we don’t mind giving our new home a fresh lick of paint or tidying up a slightly overgrown garden. We can also see through clutter (you will after all be either disposing of it or moving it with you, as we will too). We don’t expect a showroom home, but we do want something that we can move into safely straight away.
• Age of the Property – New build, older-build, anything will be considered. The local area is our primary concern, then the internal layout as we are not builders and don’t plan on doing any major renovations.

NO THANKS:

There are a few things/places we don’t want to be, to save you wasting your time, these are:

• Busy city centres (i.e. within the M25 corridor or the middle of other large cities such as Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol etc.)
• Birmingham, Sandwell and many other parts of the West Midlands. (We need a fresh start away from all the memories we have in these areas).

WHAT SUITS OUR LIFESTYLE:

If you have been reading the other pages on our website(s) you will realise we are a quiet, middle aged (35-50) family with a child who has disabilities. We enjoy the quiet, simple life; walking, camping, home-cooked meals, visiting museums/places of scientific or historical significance and spending time with our pets or in the garden etc. We are not loud/party people and wouldn’t feel comfortable in a noisy/busy area or living next to rowdy neighbours. We were brought up by our Grandparents so have a lot of traditional values.

Our dream would be a home near the sea as we love the beach and the seaside, but we know it’s not likely to happen. We would also like to find somewhere that has that mix of rural, but close to a small town (we aren’t getting any younger and do have health issues to take into consideration).

Our main goal is to relocate somewhere away from all the memories we have here though so we are not ruling anywhere out on it’s location alone (except for the couple of places listed above). We can live with a town, if it’s either close to the sea or a countryside area (e.g. near a forest) and the internal layout works for us.

Some of the areas on the top of our list of places to consider include:

• North and West Wales (We have friends here)
• Mid-Wales
• Scottish Highlands
• Devon, Cornwall and Somerset
• Parts of Worcestershire, Shropshire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, North Staffordshire etc.
• South Coast Areas
• Lake District, Peak District, Parts of Yorkshire etc.
• Norfolk, the countryside parts of central England, some parts of Lincolnshire.
• Other areas will be considered on an individual basis.

On Offer

Our current house is a 2 bed, semi-detached house in the West Midlands. It has an average sized low-maintenance garden and the front has been used as a driveway since before we moved in here (More than 7 years ago). It’s decorated in neutral colours and we can confirm the neighbours are decent/friendly. It is an urban area, close to all the amenities you may need, but is still relatively quiet for such a built up area. Further details are available on request.

For photos and more info about our home you can find our ads on:

Home Swapper: LINK

Glassbob: LINK

or email us directly at: home-exchange[at]callawayfamily.co.uk