A North Somerset estate agent has come up with an innovative way of making sure people can afford to move house – getting them to swap their properties instead.

Heritage Estate Agents, which has four branches across the district, has found the scheme is proving popular.

It works by introducing potential buyers and sellers to the idea of swapping their homes rather than buying and selling them on the open market.

Those people interested in doing a swap have their property advertised with their requirements for a new home.

Their details are also put into the agent's database, which searches for potential matches each day.

The scheme means the sale forms a loop rather than a chain and usually involves between two and five homeowners.

Heritage Estate Agents is part of the national Home Sale network of independent estate agents and has teamed up with property website Swap to Go, which features details of people across the country who are interested in swapping their homes.

If the homeowners agree to the swap and it goes ahead, searches and legal conveyancing are carried out as normal, with Heritage charging the same fee as it would to oversee a regular house sale.

Heritage Estate Agents director, Paul Kingston, said the idea to launch the home swap initiative was intended to be a way of stimulating the property market locally.

"This is an alternative way to the usual method of direct sales," he said.

"In this kind of market place, agents need to be extremely proactive and look at different ways of introducing buyers to sellers.

"Because the sale is more of a loop than a chain, with each vendor relying on the other, they have more of a vested interest, which means there is less chance of negotiations falling apart.

"It also means they can negotiate better prices and issues with the stamp duty thresholds."

One family that has already taken advantage of the home swap idea is Jenny and Nick Harman and their children, from Portishead.

The couple, who lived in a three-bed semi- in Sally Hill, wanted to move to a bigger home to cope with the needs of their growing family.

Mr and Mrs Harman, who have three children, saw a four-bedroom house in Frobisher Avenue, which they liked, and asked Heritage to investigate the possibility of a house swap.

The owner of the Frobisher Avenue house had inherited the property and planned to rent it out.

They agreed a swap, with the Harmans paying the difference in price between the two houses. They moved into their new home last month and think house swapping is a brilliant idea.

"We got the bigger house we wanted and the vendor got a property in good condition which he could rent out immediately," said Mrs Harman, 35.

"We had been trying to sell for a while, but hadn't because of the market being slow.

"I would recommend home swapping as it takes away a lot of the stress of moving and because there is no chain as such, there is a lot less that can go wrong."

Mr Kingston said he expected the idea of house swapping to become more popular throughout the next year.

"In these testing trading conditions we are constantly looking for innovative schemes to help our customers move home," he said.

"In recent months a combination of good traditional agency disciplines and imaginative marketing techniques helped us make the best out of a poor market.

"With the addition of the property exchanger scheme, we now have another option to explore on behalf of our clients.

"I think this idea will become more and more popular as the housing market becomes more challenging.

"More people will look at it as an alternative way of selling or moving on to their next home.

"I cannot say it will solve the problems with the housing market, but it will create more movement within the market place."

For more information on home swapping call Mr Kingston at Heritage Estate Agents on 01275 840600.