Holiday House Swaps....Yay or Nay??

gwjones42 · 29-12-2009 9:24pm #1

Howdy,

I bought my first house six months ago and despite not enjoying paying the mortgage very much, all is going well as I've just finished renovating it. Money is very tight as I expected before-hand, so I can't complain.

I reckoned I wouldn't be going on holidays for a few years at least, but through a combination of the crappy weather lately, and the seemngly endless stretch of mortgage repayments stretching out in front of me for the next 35 years, I've really been feeling the urge to get away for a bit.............I reckon it would have to be somewhere cheap and hot, but also fairly interesting too.

A mate told me to try house swapping, as you can go just about anywhere cheaply and your house is pretty safe because people know that you're in their house too, which sounds pretty cool. I looked at some websites,but to be honest they don't fill me with confidence. One of them is looking for $100 for a year's membership.....and others looked fairly amateur. To be honest, I feel more concerned about putting my details on a dodgy website than letting strangers into my house, (though I understand that it is taking a chance).

Therefore, my (long-winded) questions are these..........has anyone tried house swapping with good or bad results? Is there a website that's reputable? Do I even need a specialist website or are there other ways of going about it? and finally, what are the chances of getting somewhere beautiful, exotic etc....in exchange for my nice-but-not-quite-exotic dormer bungalow in Maynooth???

Any info much appreciated!!!!

Thanks,

G

Ponster · 29-12-2009 10:08pm

You'll be very, very surprised when you find out that people are willing to swap their beach-side cabin in Oz or their ranch in Texas to spend some time in Dublin

I've never done it but will do so next year when the kitchen is rebuilt and have spent a lot of time looking at different sites and services.

While the people will be stranges to you, you have to remember that :

a) they are also letting you into their place

b) On most sites you can see if someone has let before and contact those that other people to find out how things went

c) it's the type of thing that once you understand how to work it properly, you'll wonder why you haven't been doing it for years (or so I'm told...

)

Some of the better sites like 1sthomeexchange allow you to reverse search and seek people who match what you're offering i.e. a dormer bungalow in Maynooth. That way you know that the people youre speaking to already want to go to Ireland and you just have to pick the corresponding one that best suits your dates/tastes.

gwjones42 · 03-01-2010 11:22pm

Thanks for the advice folks....I really like the idea of swapping with family of international friends....I know a New Zealander who I'll keep my eyes on from now on!

DaDa · 07-01-2010 4:13pm

We've ben swapping since 2004, and don't vacatoin any other way now. All positive experiences. Fantastic if you have kids and you swap with families who also have kids. No car rental costs either (generally speaking).

When you exchange you literally get the real feel of what it's like to live in the other country. Our last exchange even included staying over with the exchange family on day/night 1, before they flew to Ireland. If you had said to me in 2004 that I'd do that... I'd have laughed at ya!

Once you are signed up, you will be saying no to at least 1 house exchange offer per week, from familiar to not so familiar countries.

In my opinion, the best (by far) exchange site out there is www.homelink.ie
The search facility and amount of detailed criteria you can enter and browse is second to none out there.

For example... you can literally search for a 3 bed house, near to beach, no pets, non-smokers, family, sleeps 6, car exchange, washer, drier, PC/Internet ...and get back a list.

Similarly you can enter in that you only seek French, Italian or Spanish families seeking Dublin between June to August 20xx.

Marie, the Irish contact is a pleasure to talk to and is very helpful.

Go for it once, and I bet you'll never look back.

If you want to discuss, PM me and I'd be happy to talk you through any reservations. (I'm not too far from Maynooth myself).

gwjones42 · 08-01-2010 4:29pm

Fair play Dada,
I might be in touch!

penexpers · 08-01-2010 5:40pm

To add a negative : we used to house swap years ago but gave it up after a few bad experiences.

One was when we swapped with this psycho woman in Italy. It was her second home that we were staying in and she was around for a while when we were there. A bad leak developed in part of the house that was closed off to us (a few upstairs doors were locked). We told her about this and she tried to blame it on us (there were signs of leaking when we arrived in the house). On our last night, we went out for a meal. We came back to pack up the rest of our things but when we got there, she was there. The short of it was, we had to leave the house at 10pm (with nowhere else to stay) and she demanded money off us for cleaning, even though we were leaving the house spotless.

The other bad experience was when a Spanish family actively stole items from our house.

On both occasions we complained to the agency involved but they completely washed their hands and there was no recourse. In fact, the Italian house was still listed in the book the next year (this was pre-internet days). The agency was Homelink, as it so happens.

I would just be careful about who you swap houses with. In our experience, the agencies don't vet people and if anything goes wrong there's no-one to turn to. The agency sure won't give a damn.

Blue Punto · 09-01-2010 4:11am

Not sure about this

Id be afraid Id see my house in a porn movie a few months later

Not that I watch that sort of thing:p

killer007 · 09-01-2010 9:04am

House swapped for the first time last Oct durning school mid-term and would really recomend it.I have 3 kids so it helps to keep costs down plus we swapped somewhere we would not have even thought of if we were booking ourselves and we really enjoyed it .
We have had 10 or more offers for next summer and we are looking at a swap in Sweden.
I found www.homelink.ie very clear and easy to use and they seem to have been around a long time.Give it a go and you'll never book a package holiday again.

PWR · 20-01-2010 3:48pm

done it twice, both brilliantly successful for us and our swappees (ers?), highly recommended. The best bit is you are in to a support network when you get there, babysitters and friends and so on. Works a treat.

Jesica Fletcher · 21-01-2010 1:24am

I found www.homelink.ie very clear and easy to use and they seem to have been around a long time.Give it a go and you'll never book a package holiday again.

I agree, homelink.ie is the way to go. I used to go on home exchanges with my family and they are really a brilliant way of going on holidays! Going and staying in a comfortable home definitely beats a tacky resort. Also, I've had the good experience of friendly neighbours who are full of local information. I'm still in touch with some families I met in Spain years ago! You get the real experience of the place you're staying in as you are spending time in someone's town and not necessarily the super touristy district! Finally, you can also exchange cars which is very handy!

Home exchanges are the way to go! Put up a nice photo of your house and I betcha there is someone who will want to swop their glamarous house for yours :-)

Scottie Dundee · 28-01-2010 10:48pm

I wonder if anyone has heard of instances where people swap houses for periods of a year or more. I have a house in Lanzarote and I would like to try living in Dublin for a year to try it.
Rather than trying to rent out my house long-term, Iwonder if someone in a nice house in Dublin would consider living in Lanzarote for a while. I would imagine that it would most suit a retired couple who'd love a year in the sun.
Obviously it would need a bit of research, maybe even a visit first to check out suitability of the properties and the people!
I'd be interested to find out if anyone has done this before and if so how they got on.

dinneenp · 16-09-2010 4:50pm

( I know this is an old thread) but I'm interested in doing a house swap next year.
When I was young we did a few through Intervac. My mum said they were good and all went well.
I'm going to look into it a bit and read this thread fully.
Cheers,
Pa.

dory · 17-09-2010 10:53pm

I'm swapping a house this month. Cork for Vancouver. I just put a message up on the Lonely Planet website and got a good few replies.

dawalster · 08-05-2014 11:30pm

hi, i have a quick question re house swap. we will be exchanging with a french family in july. we are have trouble trying the get the french drivers insured in our car here, they have had no problem insuring us in their car in france. have you had any experience with with this. and clues or tips would be much appreciated.thanks in advence

PWR · 08-05-2014 11:38pm

Depends on your insurer. I have done it with Liberty (former Quinn) a few times, cost me about 80 to insure one driver for three weeks.

PWR

dawalster · 08-05-2014 11:38pm

hi , have you had any experience in sorting out you swappers with insurance on your car while they are here. we are exchanging with a french family in july. they have sorted out insurance for us on their car in france, but we are having trouble getting them insured on our car while they are here. any tips or clues would be greatly appreciated.

Daisy 55 · 08-05-2014 11:44pm

Have had the same problem this year. Our exchange is with the US. Insurance company wanted 150 euro per person...and there are 4people! When we said we would look for another insurer, the cost dropped to 133 per couple! Reckon we can still do better though! Don't be afraid to haggle!

gwjones42 · 09-05-2014 8:44am

Hi Dawalster,

Last year, I found myself in the same situation as you. The french couple I was exchanging with had no problem insuring me, but I couldn't figure out how to do the same for them because I thought I ws going to have to do something very complicated.

What eventually worked for me was to simply add one of the family as a named driver on my current insurance policy for the period of the exchange, in the same way as spouses would add each other or parents would add their children.

This worked for me because the French lady had a full French license. To do it, I took all of her personal and license details and explained to the insurance company that she would be coming for two weeks. It cost me €63 which was annoying because I don't think they had to pay to put me on theirs, but it worked fine.

Hope it works out for you!

Regards,

G

Holiday House Swaps....Yay or Nay??

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