AIBU to encourage you to consider a home exchange for a holiday?

[notanothertakeaway]

We have had fantastic experiences and it ticks so many boxes for us -

Free holiday

Live like a local

No ethical dilemma about holiday lets decimating local housing stock

Plenty of comfortable houses to choose from. For many people, it's a lifestyle choice, not because they cant afford a holiday

Yes you have to clean your house before you leave, but it needn't be a show home. Just be honest about facilities, distance from town centre etc

I realise it's not for everyone, but I hope some people might consider it. I think it's a great idea

I would consider it, however nobody would want to stay in my house. It's a lovely house, but there's nothing here. It's not a tourist destination, it's not pretty it rural or scenic.. nobody would visit here on holiday!

Would not be comfortable with strangers in my house at all.

What are the insurance implications of this? Do you need something extra incase your house gets trashed.

Same.

@Catfordthefifth People have all sorts of reasons for going on holiday. We have been approached by people looking for an exchange so they can stay near to friends and family. And we stayed in a very non touristy area for that reason too

YANBU. We've done a house swap with some friends, which worked great. We do live on the edge of a very popular holiday location too, so we'd probably get quite a bit of interest. Do you do it through an organisation, OP?

I don't mind cleaning my home up for a visitor but I mind how much unfettered access strangers would potentially have to my stuff. How would said strangers treat my stuff? No thanks.

@Badqueen Yes, I totally respect that. We have found that, by the time the exchange happens, you've exchanged so many emails that they feel like friends of friends, rather than strangers

And I think on both sides, there is a lot of trust / goodwill eg I'm trusting you not to trash my house. In return, I will look after yours

Also, if eg you have a 2 bed house but don't want people using your bedroom then you just offer the use of one bedroom

But I hear you. It's not suitable for everyone

sorry, i dont want strangers in my home, ill stick with hotels

@angelopal we use a top up insurance policy, quite separate from our usual home insurance, but I expect you could amend your main policy

If I had a second home with ikea furniture and nothing too personal in it, then yes. Would never let strangers have free roam in my actual home though, very weird thought.

@Fairislefandango yes we use homelink, only because a friend's neighbour used them. I expect there are plenty of similar sites

Do you leave all your clothes, paperwork, all your personal stuff? I am very happy for my friends to go anywhere in my home, I trust them implicitly but I cannot perceive a situation where I’d allow someone I’d never met stay.

@Malariahilaria on the site we use, it's a mix of second homes and main residences

I totally understand it's not for everyone. We have a locked filing cabinet for paperwork and put anything personal in the garage while guests are here

We haven’t done it but lots of friends do. One family have three children and it’s been ideal for them as they’ve stayed in some fabulous locations and often swap with other families so there are toys to share. It’s massively cheaper and they’ve all only had positive experiences.

Nice idea but I wouldn’t want strangers in my home and I doubt anyone would enjoy the area anyway. It’s not very touristy.

All,your clothes, everything?

We did this a lot as kids. My parents were teachers and we had some fabulous holidays on the Continent with people they'd swapped with. I'm not sure if it was co-incidence, but most of the others were English teachers, I think - so fancied 3 weeks or so in England with only the cost of a ferry over to Hull (or somewhere).

We went to the same place in Amsterdam at least three times and the people became friends of my parents. We also went to Copenhagen - where the sister of the lady we'd swapped with was a ballerina with the Copenhagen Ballet Company and gave my parents free tickets to go see them. We had a month in Frankfurt at one point.

It was ace. (I'm talking about the 1970s here)

We did UK home swaps through the NCT when DS was young.

We had a couple of great holidays, but was put off by a couple of incidents- the first one was the Chiswick house swap where the teen was still there for the first two days of our holiday because he couldn't get his Waitrose shift changed, and the other one near Legoland where the swappers left made up meals and desserts in the fridge that weren't I assume for us so went mouldy during the week as I didn't like to throw them out and didn't leave any cat litter so we had to buy it.

It's definitely something we'd consider once we retire and have more time to arrange swaps and less money to pay for holidays.

Each to their own, but this is not for me! What about all your personal belongs? Some stranger having access to that? Sleeping in my bed? Nope!

I’ve never really thought about this. Great idea

Good god no!!

I wouldnt tolerate anyone in my bed for a start and wouldnt want strangers in my house.
And wouldnt want to be in 'someone elses' personal home either.

The second home issue is a bit of a red herring for the fact that we just wont, for whatever reason, build social housing or rental housing at affordable cost for people to live in.

Nope, nope, nope.

I would absolutely hate to have people staying in my home while I wasn't here - this would be like my worst nightmare, lol. I definitely wouldn't be able to relax knowing there were strangers in my house either!

I’ve been doing this for a couple of years now, and agree with the OP - it’s a great way to visit other places and I love it! I’m registered with a company which lets you organise reciprocal exchanges - you stay in each other’s homes, or Guest Point exchanges - you earn so many points by letting people stay in your home, then spend them to stay in someone else’s. So far, because of Covid, mine have all been GP exchanges, but this year I’m doing a non-simultaneous reciprocal exchange. Later in the year I’m going to Spain for a week, to stay in the home of a woman who has already been to stay in my place.

The risk of your place being trashed is minuscule to zero, I would say. You are both taking an equal risk as you both are opening up your home for exchange. On the website I’m on, you can read reviews of each other as host and as a guest. You also get to know each other a bit through messaging each other.

The first time I ever went abroad was with my aunt and uncle who swapped their house with a French family. Because I live in a tied house for work, mine is a second home, but it is very much my home with my precious possessions. Everyone who’s stayed here has treated my home as if it were their own, and leaves a small gift and card to say thank you!

It really is a good experience for those who feel happy sharing their home like this, and like the OP, I definitely recommend it!

I’m with home exchange.com - there is an annual fee of about £125.

Nobody would want to stay in my house! You need a fairly upmarket house to do this, at least four bedrooms and definitely two bathrooms (we have more than one loo but only one shower). Also our water system is quite noisy. And a few years ago we had a leak in the loft - imagine someone staying in your house while you are overseas and something goes wrong like a leak or less severe but still annoying, the hot water no longer working. No no no.

Staying in other peoples' lovely houses sounds fantastic - but sadly it's an "exchange" so not viable.

As for second homes, we don't have enough houses for many reasons, but with well over a million second homes in the UK, they are definitely a massive cause of the problem.