# Has anyone heard of home exchanges?



## lprstn (Feb 29, 2008)

http://www.homeexchange.com/faq.html

HOW DOES IT WORK?
Home Exchange is the vacation alternative where you stay in my house and I stay in yours.

Interesting concept, however I would only do it if I owned a vacation home to switch.  

Has anyone done this, know someone who did, or ever heard about this?  I saw it in a movie and wondered if the concept really did exist.


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## grest (Feb 29, 2008)

I recently read an article in the Sunday paper about renting someone's home for vacation.  Check out the following sites:  
www.zonder.com and www.homeaway.com
Interesting idea, especially for large families.
Connie


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## cookinmamma (Feb 29, 2008)

*Exchanges are real!*

I have 2 different friends who have done this and love it. Each are families of 4 whose kids are grade/middle school age.  One of them has family in Denmark, so she exchanged with people living in Denmark or thereabouts who wanted to come to Media, PA (why, I don't know -- we are close to Philly, so I guess history is the draw) at the same time of year (I think summer).  

You are not renting anyone's home when you exchange - but swapping homes, just like in the movie (The Holiday maybe?).  I believe they even used the exchange family's car, took care of the their pet, did cooking in the family's kitchen w/ groceries left for them, had their neighbors check in on them to see if they needed anything etc.  I know they plan to exchange again.  They exchange photos of the homes obviously and email eachother beforehand to become comfortable w/ eachother.  I don't see why it wouldn't work for swapping vacation homes too.  

The big upside for them is that it allows them to travel to destinations they otherwise could not afford, compared the the minimal (for them) inconvenience of clearing out space in closets and drawers for the exchange family.  My friend is a very trusting and open people person, definitely NOT overly concerned about neatness & order - - I think these are the minimum qualities one would need to do this. 

I (leaning toward Type A) personally would have a hard time knowing that strangers have access to my underwear drawer!!    On the other hand, I have rented a family friend's condo, in Lake Tahoe, and I had absolutely no interest looking in or touching their personal things left in closets and drawers and in fact went out of my way to avoid it.  After that stay, we decided timesharing suited us better and bought one there.  

If you have specific questions about how to do this, I'm happy to ask her and report back.


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## Jestjoan (Feb 29, 2008)

*info and sources*

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16371926/


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## ivorius007 (Mar 1, 2008)

*I did a house exchange*

I did two back-to-back 3-week house exchanges in the UK, which worked out very well.    I went through Intervac, a non-profit organization that lists everyone offering their homes for exchange.  You contact each other and work out the details yourself.  Back when I did it, in 1994, they printed a catalog with all the exchange listings.  They still do the catalog but now you can also search online.  Here is their website,  http://www.intervac.com/


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## Passepartout (Mar 1, 2008)

I've thought this is a really cool concept, but shied away after looking at some of the home-share-type websites, seeing what locations share well (kinda like good TS trades), and thinking 'Who'd want to share their Mediterranean island beach front for Twin Falls, Idaho????'

I guess you never know unless you register and give it a try.

Jim Ricks


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## applegirl (Mar 1, 2008)

I think it's a great idea and would do it in a heartbeat. My DH on the other hand, not so much. For families who live in desirable places, like the coast in SoCal, I think this is a genious way to have inexpensive vacations to cool places!  

Exchangers communicate for quite some time before the actual exchange, so I'd imagine you feel like you "know" the other family before theya rrive at your house. Also, all parties have an interest to take care of the house, since you are in each other's space.  I know of a family in my area that did it at least once, maybe more and seemed to like it.


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## lprstn (Mar 1, 2008)

I am researching this as a possibility but my husband wants no one in our home.  We may be able to do this in 2 years as I want to go to Europe for 3 weeks, and don't think I can trade my TS for it.  I am just checking out options.


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## pwrshift (Mar 1, 2008)

There was a cute movie on this subject called The Holiday ... watched it on the movie channel recently, a good time waster.

http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/theholiday/index.html

Brian


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## McKShr6 (Mar 2, 2008)

We used to belong to the Seniors Home Exchange before we bought our timeshares. We met some wonderful people from San Diego and southern Florida. We didn't encounter any problems, but some of our friends thought we were crazy for trusting people we met over the Internet.
       Our most memorable exchange was with a couple from San Diego, he had recently retired from the US Armed Forces. They had no plans to come east or visit our area, but let us use their vacation home in Rosarita Beach, Mexico for 1 week simply because they were nice people. It was right on the beach. They drove down to Mexico with us, showed us how to buy insurance for our car to take it into Mexico, introduced us to their neighbours, etc. and didn't charge us a cent.
McKShr6


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## DCTraveler (Mar 6, 2008)

*Better Than Actual Home Exchanges*

Hello!  I belong to a group called Trade to Travel at www.tradetotravel.com.  It is billed at the home exchange where you don't exchange.  It is great if you have a second home, but can use your primary residence as well.  The way the program works is that you make weeks of your home available to others in the program.  If someone wants a week you get paid in points.  The points represent the dollar value of the rental at $400 per point, so a home that rented for $2,000 per week would be 5 points.  These points are put into your account.  You then use these points to stay at any of the 1200+ other houses in the portfolio and save up points if you want to stay in a very expensive property.  This is not related to the person who stayed in your home or the week they stayed in your home -- you can travel any week to any property in the group that has availability for when you want to go.  We have traded out many weeks of our beach house while we weren't going to be there anyway (we don't rent it).  We have used the points for things like sending my parents on a trip they wanted to go on and a lovely 3 bedroom flat for a trip to Paris.  Anyway, check out them web-site and if you are interested in more details, please feel free to send me a private e-mail.


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## Sherpa (Mar 6, 2008)

We did an article on Fractional Exchanges last year.

Some of the exchange companies we covered also do whole ownership exchanges too - since at the end of the day you are just swapping time, so they don't mind whether you have whole ownership or fractional ownership, as long as you have the time available to exchange.

In the fractional arena there are a few different trading options - with no clear winner. (so it's different to the timeshare arena where the two big exchanges are well established.)


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## shakadan (Mar 9, 2008)

*Vacation Home Exchange*

My wife and I have exchanged our Vacation Homes a lot. We have been to;

Annappolis,Maryland
Anstruther,Scotland
Ansere,Switzerland
Cape Cod,Mass.
Gualala,Ca.
Torronto,Canada
Overveen,Holland

We have exchanged through Intrvac and Rotary Home Exchange(a Rotary Club Fellowship.We have been very happy with all our exchanges.Exchanging Vacation homes is much simpler than you residence.The exchanges don't need to be simultaneos.
 Our vacation homes are in Monterey,Ca. and Truckee,Ca.


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## JLB (Mar 9, 2008)

We would like to _trade_ ours for one down the road, lakefront.


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## Fisch (Mar 9, 2008)

San Diego Union Trib had some info on this today.  The info can be found online:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080309/news_1t09advice.html
It has cost to join a few of the companies.


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## cgingrich (Apr 1, 2008)

How would your register with one?  We live in Calgary Alberta and thought this would be perfect for someone wanting to come to Calgary for the Stampede Rodeo in July.  What are a couple websites?

thanks,
chris


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## lprstn (Apr 1, 2008)

cgingrich said:


> How would your register with one?  We live in Calgary Alberta and thought this would be perfect for someone wanting to come to Calgary for the Stampede Rodeo in July.  What are a couple websites?
> 
> thanks,
> chris


  Click the links in the comments above.  I am still researching...


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## DCTraveler (Apr 23, 2008)

cgingrich said:


> How would your register with one?  We live in Calgary Alberta and thought this would be perfect for someone wanting to come to Calgary for the Stampede Rodeo in July.  What are a couple websites?
> 
> thanks,
> chris


As I mentioned before, it's www.tradetotravel.com.  Good luck!


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