Has anyone done a house swap?

[IlanaK]

We are thinking of doing this as we have won a load of airmailes and can take flights somewhere but don't have enough money for accomodation. We have a 3 bedroomed central london (ver y very central) flat so thought we might be in a good position to do a swap. I am a little nervous about the idea. Has anyone done this? WHat company did you use? WHere do I go about looking?

Thanks!

Yes, we're with www.homelink.org.uk we are going to Vancouver in the summer. It costs about £110 with a photo for the year. You get an internet listing and a big telephone directory size book once a year.

It's great fun looking at all the houses, if you go on the website you can look at all the houses but there are no addresses. If you come across us we are the ones with the photo with Mickey Mouse!

You swap your house, car, pets. We've swapped in Florida and Suffolk before.

The one thing I would say is that it can be quite a hard process looking for a swap. Many people don't even answer emails. Send out lots of messages and don't get disheartened.

We've done several to la with great success. We used www.craigslist.org which is free. You list either in the city where you want to go, or in London.
Or try www.ahago.com or www.ihen.com or www.homeexchange.com.

You should be prepared with pictures (easier to have them posted on a site like photobucket rather than sending them each time) and a description of your own flat.

I'm so glad someone started this thread! Dh and I have been considering this for a while and have wondered how it would go.

There have been some recent threads on this here

and here