Home exchange

Author Message   Mike Spengel Advanced Member Username: Mike_sp Post Number: 350 Registered: 07-2006 Posted From: 70.95.149.155 Posted on Monday, May 03, 2010 - 04:39 pm:    We belong to both HomeExchange.com and InterVac.com and have had excellent results with both. We have had exchanges in Vienna, Austria; Tullamore, Ireland; Sligo, Ireland; Galway, Ireland; San Sebastian, Spain; Seville, Spain; Nerja, Spain; and Vilasar de Mar, Spain. Not a hiccup in the bunch. Two potential exchanges in Portugal fell through two years ago for different reasons, but the exchange partners there offered us the free use of their second homes anyway. This year we were to have had an exchange in Lisbon but the poor Portuguese economy forced the failure of the business of our potential exchange partners and they had to cancel. They notified us in December and we have been unable to find alternates there so we're using Portuguese military lodging for that month but will be exchanging in two different parts of Spain in June and August. Home exchanging was begun by teachers in the 1950's and about half of the members of the two organizations mentioned above are educators while the bulk of the remainder are professional people. I'm often asked, "How do you know the home you're going to will be as nice as yours?" The answer is in two parts. First, I don't really care as long as it is clean and in a place that is interesting to us. We aren't exchanging house-for-house but rather place-for-place. Second, sometimes we have exchanged for homes more humble than our own home and sometimes the exchange home has been a good deal grander. We also exchange automobiles in the package. Makes a good argument for not buying my wife a new car. :-) I'm open to PM questions on the topic.   Amy S Intermediate Member Username: Aims1111 Post Number: 58 Registered: 08-2008 Posted From: 71.142.57.190 Posted on Monday, May 03, 2010 - 12:56 am:    I list our Lake Tahoe vacation rental on here. We are doing a home swap (with another vacation rental) with a family in Alaska. We have already had them come to stay and we are staying at their house in a few weeks. This is the site we use too.   Karen Yan Advanced Member Username: Karenyan Post Number: 333 Registered: 06-2003 Posted From: 76.180.6.225 Posted on Monday, May 03, 2010 - 12:20 am:    For the past few months I have been researching Home Exchange. A great blog to get educated on all aspects of home exchange is: http://homeexchanger.blogspot.com/ Definitely not for everyone, but some seasoned home exhangers who research, prepare, and find good matches love it. From what I’ve researched so far: There are free websites as well as websites where you pay a fee. The ones where you pay a fee seem to be better. This is because those who pay a fee to join are actually serious about home exchange, whereas the free websites people may just join on a whim & not really be serious. Home exchange is good for those who are able to make their house clutter-free and can easily pack away their personal items. Communicate a lot with prospective matches before the exchange. Any red flags then don’t go through with it. One of the most reputable websites seems to be www.homeexchange.com You can join for 3 months for $15.95, but you can get a 30 percent discount code from the retailmenot website. Personally, I am finally comfortable in doing this as we live in an attractive house in a great walkable village (Kenmore), which has been voted 1 of the top 10 neighborhoods in the U.S. in 2009, not to mention close to Niagara Falls, and an area that really comes alive in the Summer. So far I have had 2 inquiries from those who viewed my listing wanting to exchange. One in Ireland (an Expat from Buffalo), and one in Andalucia, Spain.