Is house swapping possible?
You would have to find someone in the other state who wanted to swap.  This is conceivable but difficult if you want the houses to be the same value.  How do you find the one person who lives in the right place now and wants to move to the right area?   The normal way this situation is handled is to simply put your house on the market.  At the same time, you find a new house in the new location.  You arrange for a new mortgage for the new house and make purchase contingent on selling the old house.  Your buyer pays off your mortgage and gives you a bit left over that you use as a downpayment on the new house.   Note that you take a loss on closing costs when you do this.  This is why if you are in the position where you move frequently, you may be better off renting.   Sometimes an employer will help with this, paying for a long term hotel or short term rental.  This can give you more room to sell and buy the houses.   If you have to move right now, immediately, not in a few months when your housing situation is fixed, consider double renting.  You rent out your mortgaged house to someone and pay rent on a new place.  You may put some of your stuff in storage until you get into your permanent place.   The downside is that it can be harder to sell a house with a tenant until you are close to the end of the lease.  And of course, you are probably not in the best position to get or pay good rent.  Your situation restricts your options.  You might get stuck in this situation for a year so as to get the time that you need to line up a buyer.   Of course, you may get lucky and find someone who wants your old house as an investment property.  Such a person won't be bothered by a tenant.  But they usually want a good price.  After all, they want to make money off it.   There are those operations that advertise that they buy ugly houses.  They want a good deal.  You'll probably take a bath.  But they can buy quickly, so you can move on quickly.  No waiting until they find a buyer.   And I'm not saying that you can't do a swap like you want.  I'm just saying that you may find it difficult to find a swapping partner.  Perhaps an investment person would be up for it.  They take your house in trade for their house, letting you stay in their house until they can fix up your old house and either rent it or sell it.  The problem is that it may be hard to find such an investor who can handle a house where you are and has a house where you need to be.   I don't have a good suggestion for finding a swapping partner other than calling a lot of realtors and asking for suggestions.  Maybe a bit of online checking for properties where the owner's business is managing the sale. Another possibility that you might consider is to find a renter for your current place and move to your destination. If you have a lease for your renter, your mortgage company can consider that as income for approving the purchase of a new house. I did something similar when I purchased my current home, but I was also able to get approved without selling or renting the old place. There's no reason that someone couldn't create a house swapping site for longer-term than a week. It may not initially have as much demand as a 1 week swap, but there are no such existing services that I am aware of.
"&gt; This is an idea that was actually put into place more than a 100 years ago, in 1896 and even before, when the first electric cars were introduced and they even built ""service stations"" for them so you can swap the batteries. [read it here]  &gt; Even electric cars made by Tesla are nothing new.  &gt; And recently, a company called ""Better Place"", in Israel, produced modern electric cars with automated and robotic service stations that will swap the batteries for them. Read about ""Better Place"".  &gt; Bottom line: nothing new here for more than 100 years." "ETF Creation and Redemption Process notes the process: While ETF trading occurs on an exchange like stocks, the process by   which their shares are created is significantly different. Unless a   company decides to issue more shares, the supply of shares of an   individual stock trading in the marketplace is finite. When demand   increases for shares of an ETF, however, Authorized Participants (APs)   have the ability to create additional shares on demand. Through an ""in kind"" transfer mechanism, APs create ETF units in the   primary market by delivering a basket of securities to the fund equal   to the current holdings of the ETF. In return, they receive a large   block of ETF shares (typically 50,000), which are then available for   trading in the secondary market. This ETF creation and redemption   process helps keep ETF supply and demand in continual balance and   provides a ""hidden"" layer of liquidity not evident by looking at   trading volumes alone. This process also works in reverse. If an investor wants to sell a   large block of shares of an ETF, even if there seems to be limited   liquidity in the secondary market, APs can readily redeem a block of   ETF shares by gathering enough shares of the ETF to form a creation   unit and then exchanging the creation unit for the underlying   securities. Thus, the in-kind swap to the underlying securities is only done by APs so the outflow would be these individuals taking a large block of the ETF and swapping it for the underlying securities.  The APs would be taking advantage of the difference between what the ETF's trading value and the value of the underlying securities." Wow the collateral totally eliminates the purpose of the swap for B, to have a consistent steady cash flow and stable expenses.   It probably wouldn't be worth a broker's time unless it was in the millions.  They should invent interest rate swaps for the mass market. I'm patenting that! Well, you could get long kw/hr to effectively lock in your high rate, but not suffer from anymore shocks.  You could also (and this is what I would do) get short and activate change through a legal pursuit.  So, get short your light bill via kilowatt hour swaps, and hedge your downside with some longer-dated swaptions. I'm looking at the implied vol for these swaptions on my bloomberg -- it's looking surprisingly cheap.   As far as position sizing, we're looking at some notionals of about $200/month. A pretty large sum. Look into getting leverage through total return swaps or repo financing. Does that help? All of RonJohn's reasons to say no are extremely valid. There are also two more. First, the cost of a mortgage is not the only cost of owning a house. You have to pay taxes, utilities, repairs, maintenence, insurance. Those are almost always hundreds of dollars a month, and an unlucky break like a leaking roof can land you with a bill for many thousands of dollars. Second owning a house is a long term thing. If you find you have to sell in a year or two, the cost of making the sale can be many thousands of dollars, and wipe out all the 'savings' you made from owning rather than renting. I would suggest a different approach, although it depends very much on your circumstances and doesn't apply to everybody. If there is someone you know who has money to spare and is concerned for your welfare (your mention of a family that doesn't want you to work for 'academic reason' leads me to believe that might be the case) see if they are prepared to buy a house and rent it to you. I've known families do that when their children became students. This isn't necessarily charity. If rents are high compared to house prices, owning a house and renting it out can be very profitable, and half the battle with renting a house is finding a tenant who will pay rent and not damage the house. Presumably you would qualify. You could also find fellow-students who you know to share the rent cost. I've lived in a few shared houses in my time. One house had one unemployed guy, two students, and two of us earning very little. We had individual rental agreements with the landlord, so if one of us missed a few payments they'd be liable for eviction without affecting the others. To be honest I've not heard of this arrangement elsewhere. Every other rental agreement I had we signed a joint contract. I've had to pay housemates bills a couple of times to avoid a judgement against us and it was a pain getting my money back and strained our friendship. I'm still owed a few hundred that I'll never see again. In general if you can't trust your housemates to pay their bills you're probably better off looking for somewhere else to live. You're aware there's no such thing as a cheap house in Jersey right? Rental values are listed in price per DAY to make them look less scary.   Also, no, you couldn't. You pay tax in the country you are resident in and the States don't equate property ownership to residency; neither does HMRC.   Interesting side note, in Jersey's neighbour Guernsey you can own a house but not legally be allowed to live in it due to the dual property market. "There is a term for this. If you google ""House Hacking"" you will get lots of articles and advice.  Some of it will pertain to multifamily properties but a good amount should be owner occupied and renting bedrooms. I would play with a mortgage calculator like Whats My Payment.  Include Principle, interest, taxes and insurance see how much it will cost.  At 110k your monthly fixed payments will depend on a number of factors (down payment, interest, real estate tax rate and insurance cost) but $700-$1000 would be a decent guess in my area.  Going off that with two roommates willing to pay $500 a month you would have no living expenses except any maintenance or utilities.  With your income I would expect you could make the payment alone if needed (and it may be needed) so it seems fairly low risk from my perspective. You need somewhere to live you are used to roommates and you can pay the entire cost yourself in a worst case. Some more things to consider.. Insurance will be more expensive, you want to ensure you as the landlord you are covered if anything happens.  If a tenant burns down your house or trips and falls and decides to sue you insurance will protect you.   Capital Expenses (CapEx) replacing things as they wear out. On a home the roof, siding, flooring and all mechanicals(furnace, water heater, etc.) have a lifespan and will need to be replaced.  On rental properties a portion of rent should be set aside to replace these things in the future.  If a roof lasts 20yrs,costs $8,000 and your roof is 10years old you should be setting aside $70 a month so in the  future when this know expense comes up it is not a hardship. Taxes Yes there is a special way to report income from an arrangement like this.  You will fill out a Schedule E form in addition to your regular tax documents. You will also be able to write off a percent of housing expenses and depreciation on the home.  I have been told it is not a simple tax situation and to consult a CPA that specializes in real estate."