Home Exchange: Never Pin Your Hopes On One Listing!
Occasionally I am contacted either by phone or email by someone viewing the ExchangeHomes.com home exchange website, who is planning a trip to a very specific location and has found just one listing matching where they hope to go. When our completely revised website goes live, these people will be able to join as Associate Members and contact this listing without making any financial commitment, but until the transition is completed and in place it is still necessary for them to join as Full (paid) before they can initiate contact.
In the past I have always suggested to these people that joining is probably not a good idea. Why? because nine times out of ten they will contact the solitary listing they have their hopes pinned upon, only to receive a negative and disappointing response.
Very occasionally a lucky member will strike a bullseye straight away, but more often than not they find it necessary to contact quite a few potential home exchange partners before finding a likely exchange that they can move forward with.
Over the weekend I spoke with a lady who lives in Mobile, Alabama. She is planning a trip to Hong Kong in a very specific time frame in 2008, but the listing she was interested in indicated travel plans to the UK between December and February. Normally I encourage members to approach any listing they are interested in, but for non-members I don’t consider that to be a fair proposition. They pay to join, receive a negative response and are left high and dry. Not a good situation for us, and certainly not for them.
In the scope of things, very few home exchangers are able to find a listing located exactly where they want to go, matching their dates and listing their town as their destination. A much more likely scenario involves multiple email contacts and a great deal of flexibility. That’s the reality.
© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.
