To ask if you've house swapped and which website you've used?

[Drummingisfun]

Hi all,
We're on a reduced budget for holiday this year so looking at house swap for an option after an extortionate Eurocamp quote.
We'd like to go France/Spain/Portugal somewhere near the coast.

Has anyone ever done house swapping, and if so can you recommend the service/website that you used? There seem to be quite a few but don't want to end up paying membership for nothing to come of it.

I'd be really grateful if anyone can share their experiences.

Yes, I've done over 60 swaps and had nothing but good experiences. A lot will depend on whether your area's an obviously attractive one to visitors, but for approx £100 a year you can do as many swaps as you like. I'd strongly suggest avoiding free sites at all costs - it sounds tempting, but on the basis that folk don't always value what's free you'll probably get an awful lot of timewasters

I've linked below what seem to be the two biggest ones at the moment, but one caveat I'll mention is that over the years more and more members have large families travelling with them - presumably because word's spread about what a bargain it all is. Nothing wrong with that of course - though it's not really what the whole thing's about - but if you have limited bedrooms it could reduce your chances of getting a swap

Anyway, good luck and here come those sites:

www.homeexchange.com
www.intervac-homeexchange.com

I should have added that unless you're in a really popular area you might struggle with attracting French visitors, but Spain and Portugal should certainly be possible

Do be aware, though, that the sites are also starting to attract some who have no intention of swapping, but are using them as a cheap way to advertise what are actually rental properties. I'm pretty sure it's against the rules, but no doubt the organisers welcome the fees

Anyway, feel free to ask anything else you need ...

Homelink our fave done 15 ish swaps. Just joined lovehomeswap off to Nice tomorrow on first swap on that site - jury’s out!

We live in tourist city and have a nice house. Swapped to Spain, Italy, France, Berlin, LA. Changed our lives. It’s addictive!

We've used Guest to Guest. I can't compare it to other sites as it's the only one we've used. It's worked well for us and you don't have to do a straight swap - you can earn guest points for letting people stay at your house and then spend them staying somewhere else so it's pretty flexible.

puzzled thanks that sounds really positive! So the people using it as advertising for rentals, do they just tell you that you actually have to pay when you contact them about a swap?

We actually have a 5 bed house so plenty of room for larger families. We're about 20 mins from a nice city and there's quite a lot of nice things to do where we are so hopefully we could get some people interested.

I will check those sites out, thanks!

So the people using it as advertising for rentals, do they just tell you that you actually have to pay when you contact them about a swap?

Yes, that's been my experience - you send off a homeswap offer email and, no matter when you've suggested, a reply pings back regretting that they can't swap "that particular month" but "here are our rental rates"

Luckily, that still leaves the majority who genuinely are interested in swapping ...

Really great to hear your positive experiences. I was wondering how it works with house insurance? And do people leave their pets? I think we might have to wait until our old moggy passes and we get enough money to fix our leaky bathroom(!)

We've used homeexchange.com for the last 6 years and find it great. We don't live in a very touristy area but have always got swaps and always had a great experience. Couldn't imagine doing hols any other way now!

Greyclouds we put the dog in kennels but leave the other pets. They water our plants and take in our post and chat to our neighbours (that's another good thing - they give you an intro to their neighbours so you've someone trusted to call on if you need to).

greycloudstoday I was wondering about house insurance too.
I'm not sure if a normal policy covers it?

I've always found home insurers are more than happy with this; they'd rather see someone in the house than have it left empty and I can see where they're coming from

Some might remove cover for theft, but IME that's hardly likely to happen ... after all, the visitors may be in your house but you're also in theirs!!

Good point puzzled I didn't think about it like that.
Do you just leave all your valuables out as normal ?
My OH is worried that they would drink his not very valuable wine collection

Drumming on the very first exchange I did back in 1991 I practically turned the place into a hotel, even shifting clothes out ... only to get to "their" house and find absolutely everything left around - even bank statements!! These days it wouldn't even occur to me to put valuables away and nothing untoward's ever happened

I very much doubt anyone would touch DH's wine, but if you want to be subtle about it why not leave folk a nice bottle as a welcome gift and tell them where he best place is to buy it?

Thanks for the info Puzzled and WhitePhantom. I looked last night and there are some great swaps available for London.

I’d never heard about house swapping until when moaning to my grandma about hotel costs she asked ‘have you ever seen the programme on the telly where they swap homes - you should google it’! So I did.
I joined Homeexchange.com last January as they had the best reviews and the website was easy to use. I ended up doing 1 exchange last Easter in Bath and 3 consecutive weeks in 3 homes in California. I couldn’t believe how amazing each experience was. It saved me thousands in accommodation for my family of 5 but more than that, I have 3 young children and every home I visited was equipped with books/toys/bikes etc for my children to share. It’s slightly addictive because it enables you to travel more and I love travelling in my own country more now too. This year so far we have had short breaks in Wales and Whitby and we spent 2 weeks in Valencia over the summer where we did a car swap too. I’m hoping to find 2-3 nights in London over new year. It’s completely changed how we will travel now - we still like the occasional hotel but house swaps are so much more exciting and we don’t have to worry about squeezing in to small expensive rooms. For £100 a year you can do as many swaps as you like. Once you start you won’t want to stop! Hope this helps

kellyjm thanks. I think we are definitely going to look seriously at it. I hadn't even thought about weekends away in England, that's such a good idea!

Watching with interest. I joined Home Exchange last year and while I had a few enquiries they were all for peak season and as I live in a tourist area and am at my busiest I cannot take holidays at peak times. I found that my specifications (I have two properties: a one bed and a 4 bed and put both on separately) didn't matter a bit wrt the enquiries I got and HE send you emails regularly saying these people are interested in swapping with you....they were never interested in Ireland so they got that a bit wrong. I didn't bother renewing my subscriptions and was a bit disappointed in the whole experience.

I didn't think I was all that unusual though: I wanted London and/or France. I got lots of Danish, Spanish and American enquiries.

I am encouraged to see positive swapping stories on here though and maybe I am reluctant to trust anyone with my house. Keep us posted on how you get on OP please!

No Malone are you in Ireland?
Not sure why people wouldn't be interested, it's beautiful!

I have joined guardian home exchange. No swaps yet but potentially two for next year. I find that quite a few people did not reply to requests which is very annoying. I wanted holidays in london or cork ireland so thought this was the best site for those areas and the price was good. I will check out some of the others. Good luck op

Sure it's not the done thing but @ohmalone - where in Ireland are you ?( pm is you dont want to put it on here) i am looking for cork and am in France and prefer out of season. Sorry to hijack thread will not do it again.

The community is so kind eightytwenty! We also ensure we leave our guests with basics and a ‘Welcome basket’ of local goodies to enjoy.

It is frustrating when people don’t respond Humphriescushion, I assume they are the ones that are inundated with requests but that’s still not an excuse. I’ve been very fortunate though in most instances as I send out lots of requests for the location I’m going to. There are many homes in Ireland on HomeExchange, I’ve been looking at Galway next Easter. Good luck :-)

Yes I am in Ireland and it is lovely OP, thank you.

I'm in Connemara Humphries, not lovely Cork unfortunately!