Holiday home exchange. My first experience.

[Greg]

I joined a site called Home Exchange.  It's free to browse the exchanges and you only need join when you want to formerly arrange one.  My experiences and observations.  The annual membership fee is 200 dollars and allows unlimited exchanges.

Advantages, apart from cleaning fees of 100 to 150 fees no money changes hands.  Cleaning fees normally only apply to non-reciprocal exchanges.  In the summer in Europe $4000 to $5000 per week would be the normal rate to rent a holiday house. We are in Germany for 10 days.  So I am saving at least 5000 USD.

The first exchange will take 2 to 3 times the effort of the 2nd and 3rd exchanges because you learn the formula and can reuse the house instructions (how to adjust the boiler etc).  The first one involves a learning curve in terms of towels, bed linen etc.  I made the German family a shepherd's pie and got them free proms tickets and Waitrose cards.  Probably going above and beyond the call of duty, but why not?

The get to exploit your local knowledge and vice versa,. Between the free tickets and advice as to where to go and how to save money I saved the German family 700 dollars at least.

It encourages you to fix a lot of things in the house and garden and tidy up.

You use their bed linen, towels and they use yours.  Means you can travel light.  Bring less clothes because easy to use their washing machine and dryer.

We have acres of space.  I am lounging on sofa, children are playing 8 ball in the games room.  We all have our own rooms.  Normally in holiday accommodation you are squashed.

They have a library of books, DVDs you have never seen, children's toys, musical instruments, arcade machines, pinball machines, table tennis, table football, vast Lego collections, backyard swimming pool (small) and trampoline.  So our children have plenty to do on a rainy day.  Much better than a commercial hire or hotel room.

Your home is occupied while you are away.  No chance of it being burgled.

There are few if any faggots on the site.  You have a very good idea of the domestic situation  of the home you are moving into.  I think the faggots probably don't like the idea of someone living in their home.

Some people are precious about their home. Some say "no parties".  I say the exact opposite.  'Have a huge party and invite your British friends'.  So anything you can advertise to be different will appeal to people.  It is only possesions and everything can be fixed or replaced.   Next Christmas of 2025 I have a 10 day off grid house in Spain (huge place) and the expats who live there are gathering in my house for an extended family Christmas get together.  I will get a fresh tree for them and decorate it.  Probably order a Turkey too and it will be sitting in my fridge ready for them to stuff and cook.

Most exchangers leave your house cleaner than they found it.  I have aleady repaired the toilet seat and window blind here.  The website shows you reviews of them as guests elsewhere, so it's in their interests to be great guests.

Everything is here.  Cheese grater, ground coffee, usb chargers, computer printer, 10W40 oil.  I have had to buy very little.

You can arrange long exchanges of several months.  So if you earn money on line or work from home and homeschool kids you could go to Costa Rica, Iceland or Hawaii for 3 months.  Typically the other side of the exchange will be a middle aged professional couple who like travelling and want your home for a long period to use as a base to travel your country or region.

If you have pets or animals there are people who enjoy looking after them.  To some people it is an advantage.



Disadvantages..?

You cannot say "we want a villa in central Rome"  You have to be more open minded and figure you will be 15 miles outside of Rome.  New York City is almost impossible to arrange.  But a home in Niagara Falls would be easy.  We are in Germany because I was open minded enough to say, why not, when approached.  There's plenty of interesting stuff to do here just no beach with salty water.  But we swam in a large German lake yesterday.

My wife was sceptical about Germany but only because her British friends all go to Spain and Portugal.  I like it here.  Not too hot, 26C, you can drink the water, cools off in the evening so you can sleep and there are not tattooed British scumbags anywhere around.  I've only seen one British license plate.

[LausTibiChriste]

I couldn't do it - I'll sleep in 3rd class on a Russian train, hot bunk on a ship,  sleep in an 18 bed hostel, camp in a desert with strangers etc. but my home is my sanctuary - no way I'm letting people take that over, even for a day.

Glad it worked out for you though, the idea is smart for those who are for it.

[Greg]

Who lived in it before you?  Who will live in your house after you die?

Strangers very probably.  My house was built in 1931.  Half a dozen families have lived there.

I'd understand if queers were bumming each other in your bed.  Even I would object to that.  That would be sick and possibly invite a diabolical curse on the place.

I'm living in this family's house too.  Looking through their family photo albums.

Do you ever invite people to stay at your house?  We do.  We host foreign students.

[LausTibiChriste]

Honestly, the only 2 places I've properly lived in that were completely my own was my apartment in Halifax and it was brand new, so I was the first one, and my flat in Prague, which was from the 60s but they completely renovated it, so it was basically new. My parents reno'd both places I lived in as a kid too, so it was fresh...it wasn't like we were living in someone else's home.

Couldn't do it...as I said, my home is my sanctuary, kitchen especially.

[Greg]

Heaven is my sanctuary.  All the shit I have here is just shit.  Can't take it with me.  Happier realising that.

Besides how does letting someone else use it for 10 days make it less of a "sanctuary" when I return?

I have saved at least 3000 quid on not needing to rent a large holiday house for 10 days.  Cost of my summer holiday was 1000 not 4000 quid.

If you had to leave where you are now for 2 years because you got a really good contract in air services would you rent your flat for 2 years, or leave it empty and forgoe 30,000 to 40,000 quid in rental income? How far does this sanctuary thing go?

Assume good reliable tenants working for a large corporation who were paying your tenant's rent.  Also assume no income tax, because I am not paying any income tax on the cash value benefit of a house swap.

[Greg]

Had a very good experience.

My house was in perfect order.  I think a couple of toy soldiers had their arms snapped whilst being played with who cares when we have 100s and hardly play with them?

I fixed their table football table and cleaned their oven, left the place very tidy.

Super open-air swimming pools in Germany, we went to 3 and some great hiking areas.  Overall a really good 10 day holiday and it cost the grand sum of £800 for 8 people not including our food, which was just the same sort of stuff we would buy in Aldi here.

£200 crossing. £160 petrol both ways to Koblenz. £100 petrol while in Germany. £300 spending money on castle entry, climbing centre, swimming pools, etc.

[Greg]

Just arranged 17 days in Almeria in Southern Spain for July 2025.  6 of us flying there.  Airline tickets are 300 each return.  We are swapping cars too and picking each others car up from the airport so will just pay a small amount for parking it for a few hours

[Greg]

It is very close to the locations of all those Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns were filmed

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Tourism-g2449505-Los_Albaricoques_Province_of_Almeria_Andalucia-Vacations.html

[diaduit]

I've thought about this and wouldn't mind doing it as I want to go to USA.  Did you have to scrub the house from top to bottom like above your normal standards? did you have any room locked for personal things and valuables? How does insurance work on the cars if you were swapping cars?

My sister in law and her husband did house swaps for a few years and they are anal private, thinks everyone wants to know their business, its nearly an obsession.  Anyway they swapped with an Irish man living in US for decades and when they came back, heard he had a big party in their house for all the old neighbours he knew from his youth.  They nearly had heart attacks and went ballistic with him on the phone.  I wouldn't like neighbours in my house when not there but thats what you sign up for when you swap.  Thats why I would keep one room locked for personal stuff.

[Greg]

We just left the house as clean as we found it.  I cleared some weeds from the driveway and fixed the table football and cleaned the oven too so it was better actually.

Some people want pro cleaners in which they want 100 to 200 dollars for but that's fine as you just charge them the same and pocket the money and clean it yourself.

It's a community so the people with a history of swapping are 99.9% reliable.  The newbies are a risk but you're unlikely to get a psychopath