State Opens Website for House Trading

Cuba currently suffers a shortage of over a half million homes. Popular remedies include subdivisions like makeshift walls and artificial ceilings/floors to accomodate ensuing generations and newly integrated in-laws. Or, alternately, the architectural dividers serve as the physical representation of marital separation.

Selling houses is prohibited in Cuba, but the state allows people to swap houses. One could even trade one house for two apartments, for example. Houses in Havana typically fetch two houses in the less desirable provinces.

Previously, there were informal real estate agents that worked to connect two or more parties interested in moving. More recently internet bulletins have sprouted up that serve as marketplaces. State television even had begun sporadically announcing offers to "permutar" houses on the evening news.

Now the state has entered the game with an official website dedicated to house swapping.