Home exchanges may be easy or difficult to arrange based on where your own home is located. Someone with a popular apartment near the Eiffel Tower may not be interested in a home in Davis, CA, unless by odd chance the Parisian is teaching at The University of California at Davis for the summer, or perhaps attending a family wedding in the area. On the other hand, if you live in a popular destination like Hawaii or Manhattan, you'll have a much wider variety of offers. However, don’t give up on the idea of trying a home exchange if you don’t live in a popular vacation city, just be prepared to work a little harder to find a successful exchange. According to Homeexchange.com, even their members in off the beaten path locations have made these successful exchanges:
- 10+ successful exchanges with a home in Modesto, California
- 10+ successful exchanges with a home in Amherst, Nova Scotia
- 10+ successful exchanges with a home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania
When I did a reverse exchange search for someone who might be interested in an exchange in the small Northern California town of Modesto I came up with this beauty:
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| Historic home in southwest Germany, whose owners are looking for a home in San Jose or Modesto, California while visiting family |
Of course if you are exchanging a vacation home it is always easier than using your primary home, but many simultaneous exchanges of primary homes are also made, such as this:
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| Owners of a bungalow in Long Beach, California wanting to go to The Netherlands |
Once you have joined a home exchange organization and have decided on a location you are interested in you will need to send out a standard letter of invitation to prospective exchangers, describing your home, your neighborhood, attractions, and anything you can think of to make a swap desirable. The more messages you send, the better your chances of avoiding disappointment. But be realistic in your expectations, based on a factual analysis of what you have to offer, and be sure to plan as far in advance as possible. I often send out 10 to 15 letters when I am looking for an exchange and often hear back from about half of those, with one or two showing interest.
What Exchange Web Site To Use?
When it dawned on me in 2008 that home exchanging might be a great way to travel, I researched many different sites and decided that Homeexchange.com fit my needs best at that time. Now there are over 80 different home exchange organizations from which to choose. These range from the largest, Homeexchange.com, with 40,000 listings in 144 countries, to LuxeHomeSwap.com which was created in 2010 with 214 listings. Prices of joining range too, from free sites like Geenee.com, up to yearly fees of $495 on 3rdhome.com, with the average price being around $120. Many allow you to search their databases on the Internet or view sample listings for free before joining. There are some which even cater to various groups such as seniors or teachers, or owners of multi million dollar homes.
A great web site to view information about all of the home exchange sites is Knowyourtrade.com. where they list over 80 home exchange companies with reviews, membership fees, number of homes listed, and benefits offered. Great site! They even offer discounts periodically for membership in different exchange sites. Right now there are coupons for a 30% discount to join Homeexchange.com, a free year’s membership at Exchangehomes.com, and 25% off the membership fee at Homebaseholidays.com.
And if you are still not convinced that you too can become a home exchanger take a look at the variety of homes below which are examples of the types of properties being offered for exchange and where they are are looking to go. Then go to one of the sites above and check out for yourself who might be looking to come to your home town right now!
New York City apartment owners looking for an exchange
to Portland, Oregon or San Francisco.
Owners of this lovely craftsman style home in Portland, Oregon would like a
simultaneous trade for a home in Denver, Colorado.
Owners of this home in Tuscany would like a non-simultaneous exchange for
a home in Denver, Colorado or Idaho Falls.
These owners of a traditional home in Cape Cod would like a
non-simultaneous exchange for a home near Yosemite.
The owners of this modern apartment in Paris are looking for a 6 month
simultaneous exchange in Palo Alto, California next winter while their
daughter attends high school there.
Owners of this ocean front apartment in Kings Beach, Australia are looking for a
non-simultaneous exchange in Los Angeles, Wyoming or Montana.
Owners of a ranch style home in Sacramento, California are looking to make a simultaneous exchange for a home in France or Orlando, Florida.
What’s your style of home? City apartment, suburban bungalow, resort property, home in the country? With over 40,000 listings, someone, somewhere is looking to make an exchange with you.
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4 comments:
Hi Shelley, my name is Maria and I work for HomeForHome. I just discovered your blog to which I'll be coming back to read about your experiences and specially your advice to other swappers. There's a lot to be learned from real home exchange experiences that can help people in the home exchange business learn how to do things better. It's a pity we were not offering our service yet when you did your search in 2008, it would have been great to have you find us!
Thanks Maria. I will take a look at HomeForHome as I too am always looking to learn more about home exchanging and always look at all of the home exchanging sites to see which ones are the best.
I have done 51 home exchanges and am shortly going to Europe to do 3 more (Toulouse, Bordeaux & Salamanca).
You can find my basic piece on home exchanging here: http://altecockertravels.weebly.com/how-to-do-a-home-exchange.html
There are lots of other pieces on the site about my home exchanges. I have done 18 in Europe (including 1 in Turkey), 7 in Australia and 2 in NZ. The rest have been in North America. I do have one scheduled in Costa Rica later this year.
I am a big fan of Intervac and Homelink, but I had no luck at all with homeexchange.com. There are too many Americans on that site to make it a good deal if you want to go to Europe. In Europe, 1/3 of the homes are in France, so it is an imbalance there as well.
I do not have a second home and have never found the lack of one to be a problem. All my exchanges have been simultaneous--and, except for 1, have been through Homelink and Intervac. The one that wasn't, came from answering
a question online.
Now that I am retired, I go away more often and also bunch exchanges together back to back for a longer trip.
While you seem to like trading vacation homes, I avoid second homes like the plague. I am not a big fan of the beach (I get bored) and many are on beaches. The other issue with vacation homes is that they are often not as well maintained as principal residences.
Happy home exchanging wherever you go.
I already have one exchange locked in for summer 2014. I will be going to Bielsko-Biala, Poland (near Krakow). I am still looking for a second exchange in Poland to make a 6-8 week trip.
Thanks for your input Altecocker. I like your site and information you share. Funny, but we really have two different views of home exchanging, which means its a great way to travel for different kinds of people. We have found almost the complete opposite from you that the three primary residence exchanges we have done were more cluttered, and just not as comfortable or as nice as the over 20 second home exchanges we have done. We also find it easier to exchange for 2nd homes as they do not need to be simultaneous. I have checked out Intervac and Homelink, as well as many other sites and have found Homeexchange.com to have more of the kinds of homes in the locations we like than the others. We have done two exchanges in Europe and the rest have been in the U.S. The European people were a delight to work with, and their homes wonderful, but neither of them have yet to come to our place in Costa Rica, however we are keeping the door open for them to come anytime. Isn't it great that there are so many different opportunities for different kinds of exchanges? Have a great time in Poland next summer. We are off to our favorite beach/golf home exchange on the Californina coast in a couple of weeks for our second exchange with these owners. A great weekend summer getaway for us, and they love coming to our place in Tahoe to ski in the winter!
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