Successful Home Exchanging - More About Selecting A Club
This is part two of a series I’ve been asked to write covering successful home exchange procedures.
In my last post I began working on the process of selecting the home exchange club you decide to sign up with. Here are a few more thoughts about that same subject:
- A Genuine Home Exchange Businesses should be Established-
Genuine home exchange businesses should be able to tell you how long they have been around, who owns the company and other details that you would normally expect a business to provide. If they can’t provide these simple details then you should be wary. - Genuine Home Exchange Businesses should have happy members-
You should be able to get testimonials from people who have joined the organization and have been satisfied with it, other than the people who are trying to sell you a membership. The people who gave these testimonials should also be current, active, listed members. - Genuine Home Exchange Clubs should be contactable-
You shouldn’t just have an email for the company but you should also be provided with a telephone number and full, physical mailing address (not just a PO Box) and preferably as many details as possible. If people do not give all their contact details be wary because they may be trying to hide.
Take a look at their listings—all their listings should be available for you to view. Do they clearly display each one’s expiration date? Are they genuine HOME EXCHANGE offers, or nothing more than the owners of vacation properties using an inexpensive means of promoting their rentals?
A lot of “start-up” sites display old, long outdated listings indefinitely, and even some of the more established clubs mingle straight rental offerings with their genuine home exchange listings.
Finally, beware of “Free” clubs. In this day and age something for nothing should be viewed as a reg flag of warning, never as an opportunity to save a few dollars. 99% of the members of free clubs join on a whim and are totally uncommitted. So many clubs bear confusingly similar names—after all, how many ways can the term “home exchanging” be expressed when searching for a URL and name? Several times a week the phone at ExchangeHomes.com rings and it’s someone asking if they signed up with us X-amount of months ago. Invariably they joined a free club and now cannot remember which one it was.
Similarly, on three occasions last summer I answered calls from distressed members of various free clubs, all of whom had been let down at the last minute. They had received no guidance from their clubs, no home exchange agreements had been completed, and even worse, one was totally unable to contact the owner of the club because no contact information was available on the web site.
So—to sum up: go with experience; go with a club that’s clearly available for contact, and expect to pay a small membership fee. That fee buys you peace of mind and membership with the genuine article!
About Your Listing
- Successful Home Exchanging - Finalizing Your Exchange
- Successful Home Exchanging - Contacting Fellow Home Exchangers
- Successful Home Exchanging - Good Photographs Are Important
- Successful Home Exchanging - Additional Listing Tactics
- Successful Home Exchanging - Setting Up Your Listing
- Successful Home Exchanging - More About Selecting A Club
- Successful Home Exchanging - Selecting a Club
- A Guide to Setting Up Your Home Exchange
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