Home exchange

From Wikitravel Shared

This article is a travel topic.

Home exchange or house swapping is a vacation alternative where you stay at someones home while they stay at yours. A house swap may also include an automobile exchange. Other items that can be up for negotiation include the care of pets and plants.

[edit] Understand

Home exchanging has numerous advantages, including significant savings on hotel costs since neither has to pay for lodging. Additional savings can be had when an automobile is also exchanged. And who doesn't prefer a spacious house to a one-room hotel? Whether for a vacation, or a longer term sabbatical, a home exchange allows one to experience a vacation living like a native.

Unless you are exchanging a 5-star villa in the Caribbean or an apartment facing Central Park, finding a home exchange requires a little bit of effort and time.

The Internet has numerous websites that provide home exchange listings across the globe. You can determine how up-to-date the listings are by reviewing the proposed exchange dates - and good home exchange sites will include both the join and expiry dates within the descriptions so you know exactly how long each exchange offer has been in circulation. Home exchange websites provide a mechanism by which you can get in touch with other people interested in swapping homes. However, you are responsible for your own exchange arrangements.

To increase your chances of concluding an exchange you should post your home swap offer on several home exchange sites (look for those that include full contact details). Look for well established sites with a good choice of up-to-date listings in areas/countries you are interested in. Avoid free sites as home owners who list here are less likely to be committed to arranging home swaps than those who have paid a reasonable fee to be listed on a private, members only site. It is recommended to post your home exchange offer several months before the dates you want to exchange homes. Compile an enticing exchange offer that includes details about your home, yourself, your destination and proposed dates. Periodically check home exchange sites for new home swap listings. And don’t forget to contact new members as soon as possible before they are able to conclude an exchange.

Once you’ve made contact and your potential exchange partner confirms their interest in your home, get to know them better by exchanging e-mails and agreeing to speak on the telephone. To reassure yourself and your exchange partner you should ask for and offer to provide references.

Clean and tidy your home before your exchange. You may also want to fix that leaky faucet that you’ve been meaning to get to for several months now.

Create a guestbook that provides information on using your appliances, local information (e.g. hospital, restaurants, grocery stores, transportation), and contact numbers (e.g. family member or friends, dentist, car garage).

There are groups that can help facilitate a home exchange:

• ExchangeHomes.Com. Established back in 1986. US based, British owned with listings from all around the world and very reasonably priced. All memberships are active and current. Lots of helpful information, plus a blog, forum and newsletter. Very secure, yet user friendly website. All listings can be viewed prior to joining.

• ExchangeHomesBlog. The blog associated with *ExchangeHomes.Com. Constantly updated and packed with home exchange stories as well as tips, tricks and suggestions.

• Global Home Exchange, [1]. A long established home exchange service based in Canada with over 7000 worldwide listings and partner clubs based in the UK and France.

• Global Pacific Vacation Homes, [2]. Canadian based home exchange service with worldwide listings.

• 1st Home Exchange / Vacation House Swap, [3]. Lists vacation home exchange / house swap listings across the globe. Website is available in several languages.

• Intervac, [4]. One of the early clubs, still produces a hard-copy catalog in addition to listings on its website

• Home Base Holidays, [5]. A long established UK based club with a large choice of exchange offers in many countries (particularly strong on the UK, Europe and Australia) with no listings older than two years. Useful information in regular newsletters and blog.

• HomeExchange.com, [6]. Over 9,500 home exchange Listings in 88 countries. Listings semm to have more user-entered descriptions of home, people and neighborhood and more photos.

• Holiday Homes in the UK Although Holiday Home Rental is primarily dedicated to holiday homes for rent in the UK, they do have a section for home exchanges which is highlighted in their advanced search area. This site only contains houses in the UK though.

• HomeExchange.Jp Not only Europe and America but also Japan and each country of Asia will be arranged and offered. Website is available in Japanese and English, depend on a browser. It will be available in Chinese in the near future.

• HomeWelcome.com. Cost effective home swap and home exchange listings supporting homes and travel locations of over 80 countries.

• Know Your TradeUnaffiliated home exchange hub that rates and reviews all 60+ home exchange clubs in addition to providing home exchange tips.