Swapping homes for holidays - Any website recommendations?

[Rattitude]

I was wondering if anybody could recommend decent home-swapping websites.

A friend of mine has 3 kids so it would probably be cheaper for them to arrange holidays by swapping their (nice) house with another family.

I have had a look online but there are quite a few websites which advertise such services, so If anybody has had any positive experience of specific websites, I would be most grateful to hear your recommendations.

Many thanks!

Hi we used the NCT website, worked well for us as the people we swapped with all had children as well so there were toys and its good to get photos of the property before you agree anything.

There is an annual fee - haven't used it for a couple of years so couldn't say what it is.

Thanks, theoriginal. Do you mean THE NCT website as in www.nct.org.uk/?

Would that work with people who live abroad?

www.ncthouseswap.ning.com/ apparently now free if you are an NCT member. Only for UK unfortunately although there are a couple of foreign holiday homes

We've arranged a swap next summer with a family via www.homeexchange.com
The web site is fabulous; very clear and easy to use, and although there's small fee to join, you can join for 3 months only and you can usually find a promo code via a google search.
I'm also a member of the Guardian site too. It's ok, haven't actualy swapped yet with anyone from there yet though.

Thanks to you both. That is very helpful. I suspect the NCT option will not work out for them though.

Homelink. Not done it for a couple of years (need to sort out our mouldy kitchen first!) but we've done about 7/8 exchanges through them.

Another vote here for www.homeexchange.com. We chose it specifically because it had huge choices for the USA which is where we wanted to go. Some others have more in Europe to choose from, it depends what you want. We have had 5 brilliant swaps out of it.

Doesn't Mumsnet have a section dedicated to this kind of thing?

Thanks for all the options and feedback.

I don't know if there is a relevant section on Mumsnet. I will look into it.

We have done 2 successful swaps to France via www.homeexchange.com.

Thanks, Approximately. I have recommended the website to my friend.