I explained to her that legally such a move is simply not possible. The owners of these listings joined, probably early in 2010, or maybe even in 2009 and paid for their listing to be displayed.

Also yesterday when I checked our site activity logs, I was dismayed to see that at least two members had logged in and sent out inquiry emails to fellow members, yet neither had edited their listings to show 2011 required dates.

S0—please, whether you have home exchange listings with us or anyone else, don’t forget to keep all your published information current.

Over and over I’m receiving puzzled, disappointed, frequently frustrated reports from ExchangeHomes members who tell me they are sending out home exchange inquiry emails, never to receive a reply. I in turn send emails to some of the members who were contacted and also never receive a reply. I then phone them and in every single case they claim to have never received any of these emails.

I ask if they check their spam folders regularly—no, they either click to empty them occasionally without ever checking the contents, or have them set to purge automatically after x-amount of days.

People simply don’t realize that these days, the majority of email programs compare the addresses of incoming emails against a) the recipient’s “Friends List” and b) their stored list of email addresses. If the email address of the incoming mail doesn’t find a match in either of these, it’s immediately discarded to their spam folder.

I completely understand that sorting through all the spam mail is frustrating, but all that is usually required is a careful review of the subject lines—opening and reading each one certainly isn’t necessary. Make a habit of actually reviewing the contents of your spam folder because you could be missing out on some great home exchange opportunities.

At ExchangeHomes.com we have programming in place to track exactly how people—members and visitors—navigate the website and over and over again we see listings with no photographs being skipped over. In short, no viewable photographs translates repeatedly into ‘no traffic’.

Some people seem to feel that publishing photographs on the Internet is a threat to the security of their home. Well, I’ve yet to hear of this being the case, but there is a very easy solution: just illustrate your listing with photographs of your locality and area attractions, then publish pictures of your home on a secure, password protected website such as PhotoBucket or MyPhotoAlbum. Only provide access to those more personal photographs to fellow members after you have corresponded with them and have established a good rapport. Indicate in the text of your listing that more pictures will be available.

We offer a no questions asked Guarantee: if you don’t get a home exchange in the first year, the next year is completely free, on the condition that you have added photographs to your listing (and your Admin Area shows that you’ve initiated some inquiries with fellow members). In view of our proven lack of traffic to listings without photographs, this provision is critical, because each year we do see a small number of people who join, possibly on the spur of the moment, never add pictures to their listing, never send out any contact emails, in fact never even log on to the site again throughout the entire year.

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At that point I usually give a sigh of resignation. As any realtor will tell you, first and foremost, it’s all about location, location, location. A builder could take the plans for a 3,000 square foot home, build it on an acre lot with rolling lawns, trees and a stream meandering through the property. But—because it’s located rurally, 20 miles outside the nearest town, it may not even be worth $500,000.

Then again, that same builder could take those same plans and build an identical home on just a quarter acre lot in, for example, San Jose or The Hamptons, and suddenly you’re looking at a million dollar’s worth of real estate.

An 800 square foot Thames-side luxury apartment in London would be worth £1,000,000 (not dollars, pounds!). The average New York apartment is probably worth $1,000,000.

Location more than anything else dictates the price of property and I think it’s extremely unfair when the “snob” value becomes involved in a home exchange. Okay, so you may live in a million dollar home in La Joya (California), but why does that eliminate from consideration a member with an exquisitely fitted home with manicured grounds in rural Texas?

I’ve been intending to write this post for a long time, and now at least I shall be able to point future “Million Dollar Exchangers” to my observations.

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Thankfully, this has been somewhat counteracted by another member who contacted us full of compliments. She said she had joined on March 1st, immediately sent out just five emails, and within a couple of days received three replies, all positive. By March 15th she had narrowed her selection down to one, and just a week later both parties finalized arrangements by exchanging Home Exchange Agreements.

But to return to the subject of this post. Year after year we always hear from a small percentage of potential home exchangers, unhappy because they don’t receive responses to their emails.

As I’ve written over and over, it’s not always due to bad manners. Over protective email clients more and more divert any email from an unfamiliar source straight to the spam folder, and people seldom check its contents before simply clicking to ‘empty’ it. I checked a member’s activity logs on the web site just the other day because she said she had been a member for a year and never received a single home exchange inquiry. I discovered that twenty two inquiries had actually been sent to her (and they were also listed in her Admin to read). She admitted that she always emptied her spam folder without looking through it first. She also had no idea that copies of all her emails in and out are stored in her Admin.

Finally, sometimes emails never get though because the intended recipient has changed their email address and it has never occurred to them to change it in their listing. Hence no contacts ever reach them. Others set up Yahoo, Gmail, MSN addresses then as time passes, forget to check them. We had a man once complain about lack of replies and inquiries, but he had completely forgotten that the email address in his listing was with Gmail. He had never checked.

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I realize that on a few occasions, last minute exchanges are possible, but generally they are not the norm, especially in these economic times. First and foremost, people will need to exchange during dates when it impacts the least, both on their work and their wallets. And that usually requires time.

Normally, to get the best bargains, flight tickets need to be booked quite a long way in advance. Today, virtually everyone is watching the pennies so it’s highly unlikely that too many home exchanges will be set up if the time is so short, only expensive air fares are available.

This should definitely NOT be the case, simply because with a correctly arranged home exchange, NO up front cash payments are ever involved. No home exchangers should ever ask for, or expect to receive any form of security deposit. Your home exchange partners or “guests” stay in the home you are contributing to the home exchange arrangement, while you live in theirs. That’s the arrangement. The security for both parties is structured around this.

Furthermore, a detailed Home Exchange Agreement or Contract should always be completed and signed by both parties, and that agreement should specify how payment of utilities, etc. should be met. Normally, all utilities: electric, gas, water, etc., are paid by the home-owner, while phone bills are often stipulated as being the responsibility of the guests in the home. This being the case, an average phone bill is not likely to attract the attention of the scammers currently being written about. ExchangeHomes.com provides an excellent Agreement / Contract.

From the perspective of the vacation rental owner, the scam works this way:

You (the property owner) accepts a reservation from someone who makes payment with a cashiers check. They “unintentionally” overpay and when you inform them of their overpayment they instruct you to send them a refund using Western Union. Mission accomplished!

How? It’s simple—the cashiers check was fake and because it frequently takes your bank a while to ascertain as much, by the time its actually established, you’ve wired the money to the scammer via Western Union. You are left holding a loss of whatever the amount was you wired, plus probable bank fees.

This type of scam has pervaded the Internet so badly, it has been given a name: the 419 scam. 419 is the Nigerian Criminal Code that deals with fraud. The majority of these scams originate from Nigeria, some have also come from Russia, South Africa, Spain and The Netherlands.

A full report on the “419 Fraud” can be found on Wikipedia.

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Our policy is to give them a couple of days—maybe they feel they need to spend some more time working on their home exchange listings first—then we email the potential members and gently remind them that until they commit to paying the necessary listing fee, all their efforts are in vain because without activation, their listings will remain hidden from view.

Three of these people have astonished us with their replies. They explained that they have already paid a listing fee to join another club, hence they felt that we should include their properties on our web site free of charge! One person in fact, all but demanded that we release his listing for all to view and went on to detail his opinion that ALL the clubs should join together and publish each others listings.

This attitude amazes me; I’ve heard similar stories from other clubs. ExchangeHomes.com isn’t a charity, we too have bills to pay and a living to make. Maybe the people now expecting free memberships with second and third clubs should have researched their first choice a little more closely before committing to them because each of them cited lack of success as their reason for turning to us.

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I was amazed to hear this. We constantly attract new members who have never participated in a home exchange in their lives and although we often never have occasion to discuss their successes with them, a great many are quick to renew after notification that their listings are due to expire and I find it hard to believe that this would be the case had they been ostracized by experienced exchangers during their first year. Furthermore, we clearly publish the fact that we offer a Guarantee—if you don’t arrange an exchange during your first year’s Membership, we will extend your listing for a second year completely free of charge! In an average year we only receive two or three claims against this guarantee.

So I decided to investigate a little further. I checked the web site logs to determine who she had initiated contacts with and emailed a sampling of these members myself. Two were long time members of ExchangeHomes.com so I knew I would receive informed responses from both of them.

I quickly discovered what the problem was. All were up front and admitted that with first time home exchangers they tend to be somewhat more cautious, but the issue was different matter altogether. The lady had worded her home exchange offer listing the exchange party as just her husband and herself—a retired couple. But, once correspondence with likely exchange partners had been established, she had suddenly introduced a number of teenage grandchildren into the mix.

The majority of members she had contacted were also retired folk with small homes (some just small apartments), so it was hardly surprising that they all had balked at the idea of their homes being invaded by four (one said five) rowdy teenagers!

The moral is clear: be honest and up-front from the start. We have a number of members who successfully arrange home exchanges that include their grandchildren, but usually they take one, or possibly two at a time and they explain their intentions openly in their listings. Also, they initiate exchanges where the homes already have teenage occupants, and the home they offer is usually larger and a fair swap.

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The rule of etiquette is simple: when corresponding with anyone directly (not via the ExchangeHomes.com web site) about your exchange offer, always include in your message clear reference to the home you are interested in by Listing I.D. AND the I.D. of the home you are offering in exchange. This will make it instantly clear to the recipient exactly who you are.

Remember, the majority of members, especially if they are proactive, will send out multiple home exchange inquiries, plus they may have more than one home listed. You will make the flow of information so much easier if you always begin with the necessary references.

Of course, members who make a point of conducting all their correspondence via the web site have the job done for them, because every outgoing email is programmed to contain all this information, plus copies of every email sent and received in safely stored in your Admin Area for later reference.

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Well, I’m going to make it a whole lot easier for the next 50 members who join, by giving them a copy of Home Exchange Academy. When the author, Athena Ricky wrote this eBook, she was already the veteran of more than forty home exchanges. Home Exchange Academy was first published on the Internet early in 2007, so that figure is most likely even higher.

To be fair, I’m also offering a copy to the next 50 ExchangeHomes.com Members who renew. It doesn’t matter if you still have some time to run with your present home exchange membership, your renewal will be programmed to take effect from your last current day forward.

Looking at our online listings, I know there are a great many that could benefit significantly from Athena’s coaching. A large portion of Home Exchange Academy explains exactly how to set up, word, and illustrate your listing to your best advantage. How to get the most “bang for your buck!”

Finally, I’m also offering a few copies to any of you out there interested in submitting a story about your own home swapping experiences, be they hilarious, amazing, true to life, educational—if it’s something we can use in our newsletter or blog we’re waiting to hear from you.

To email your story to us, please visit This Page on the web site.

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Right away it became evident that these free memberships were (as I suspected they would be), a disaster waiting to happen. Our programmers had written code to very stringently control how many contacts they could actually initiate with listing (paid) members. Initially they were allowed just five contact emails in any 24 hour period, but after just a short time this was amended to a total of five for as long as they remained Associate Members. We also began asking Full Home Exchange Members to actually give us permission to allow email contacts from Associate Members.

Immediately the two tiered system launched it attracted a high volume of Associate (free) Member sign-ups. In fact, during the six month trial more than three thousand free members joined, and we were swamped checking the authenticity of the personal information the provided. I felt we had to do this to replace the otherwise standard validation of information which is part of the payment process.

A frightening proportion immediately had their memberships canceled because the names and addresses they entered were pure gibberish, but an equally scary number provided what appeared to be authentic names and addresses—until they failed validation.

Eventually enough became enough. In order to protect our Full Members we were spending hours every day administering dozens of Associate Members. As of the beginning of August the Associate (free) option was removed.

Of course there were hundreds of completely genuine free members who signed up, but as I saw it, the risk was just too great. Since we first began (back in 1986) we’ve never had a report of theft or malicious damage and I wasn’t prepared to have that record destroyed. Also, a huge percentage of those free members were already paid members of other home exchange clubs and were directing our members to check out these listings.

They were expecting us to act as “feeder pages” for xyz.com (not a real url).

Anyway, the plug has now been pulled on Associate Memberships. I believe we gave it a fair trial, but it’s not for us.

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I asked one member, who I know has definitely set up an exchange, why she had not utilized the “Exchange Arranged” option and she raised a very interesting point. She lives in an especially attractive area and normally receives an ongoing list of home exchange requests. However, last year she marked her listing as “Exchange Arranged”, and immediately the requests dried up. As she pointed out, she expects to travel at least once or twice every year throughout future years, so just because her plans are complete for 2008, she doesn’t want to create a negative impression and repress new inquiries.

So, I think the moral is this: if you see a listing that’s attractive to you, but it’s marked “Exchange Arranged”, the likelihood is they are just referring to this current year. By all means email them with an exploratory inquiry for future years. We constantly repeat that home exchangers should try to plan ahead and this scenario is an example of exactly what we mean.

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1.  Dial Up
2.  High Speed

Unless listings are edited by their owners, each defaults to the “Dial Up” option.

Since this was added, new members of course have selected accordingly, but I’ve noticed that very few members who had joined previously have actually made any changes.

For your own benefit, I strongly encourage everyone to do so. Many of our members and visitors are either small business owners or are in jobs that necessitate they maintain Internet access via high speed connections even while on vacation. Consequently, if your listing indicates that you have dial up access, when it’s actually high speed, it could result in lost home exchange inquiries.

Editing your listing will take only a couple of minutes out of your time and it could produce some very positive results!

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Since adding the Associate (free) level of membership, we’ve been stringent in our requirements that everyone using the option provides us with true and accurate contact information. The details provided by each Associate Member are physically checked by a human being, and any that appear to contain false information are immediately deleted.

I see it this way: every Full (listing) Member HAS to provide accurate contact information in order to pay for and display their home exchange offer. Any false details would immediately result in their payments being declined. We are now allowing Associate Members the privilege of initiating contact with Listing Members, but we definitely owe it to our paid members to verify the legitimacy of people using the ExchangeHomes.com to contact them. I don’t believe any paid member would argue with that!

There are other reasons why an Associate Membership could be removed. I will list them below:

1. The Associate (free) Membership hasn’t been logged into and used for a period of 30 consecutive days. We had to implement this programming when we found that the database was becoming bloated with literally thousands of “dead” listings. People were joining, sending out a few contacts, then most likely forgetting about their free memberships.
2. The Associate Member has attempted to do nothing more than “spam” listing home exchange members. Of course, with a programmed limit of only 5 emails for Associate Members, they may claim that spamming isn’t possible. Yes it is. Programming monitors all emails leaving the website for certain trigger actions and then alerts us. At that point we check the legitimacy of the emails and a human being makes the final decision.

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ExchangeHomes.com offers templates for Home Exchange Agreements, Car Exchange Agreements and a Home Exchange ‘Book’ in both PDF and MS Word formats, as, I’m sure do most of the major home exchange organizations. What’s so disappointing is that most of our members never explore the goodies that are available for them to utilize, and I guess it’s the same for members of other clubs as well.

Agreements / Contracts seem to be a hot issue at the moment because recently I’ve repeatedly been discussing their importance with members. Just last weekend a lady who has been an ExchangeHomes.com for twenty years admitted to me that she has never utilized an Agreement and also that she had no idea she could download a template from the website.

The ExchangeHomes.com templates can be reached by clicking >> Here or, anyone on the website can click the Help Center link, then Sample Forms and Agreements under the Miscellaneous sub-heading.

The importance of using a Home Exchange Agreement was also the subject of a recent post— Finalizing Your Exchange.

I hear from a lot of members who steadfastly believe them to be unnecessary, but as I’ve been explaining to those I’ve had conversations with recently, I’ve yet to hear of an exchange that encountered problems following the completion and signing of an Agreement. Okay— it’s probably not a legal document, but it serves to gather together every important point and issue that arose during the process of arranging the exchange; all those little details that spanned numerous emails, and several phone conversations. Everything is laid out in one document. It also acts as a final buffer against anyone who may possibly renege at the last moment.

As I point out to our members, if the person they are negotiating with is opposed to signing an Agreement, ask them why, and if they persist in not signing they should contact us immediately.

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For a long time it’s been a common practice for a lot of home exchangers to utilize free email addresses so that they don’t reveal their main email address, but apparently these people had joined our service and entered their “free” email address, then over the course of time, ceased to check it for contact emails.

Clearly this is yet another reason why we get complaints from a few members, very frustrated because they receive no replies to their contact emails. Until this discovery I’d always attributed this to mails being routed directly into its intended recipient’s spam folder, and plain old lack of courtesy. This now offers yet another cause.

I’ve also taken a look at a couple of these web mail companies—they both appear offer huge amounts of storage space. It’s extremely disheartening to wonder just how many contact emails are sitting there unopened and unresponded to. If you do use a free email address for your home exchange correspondence, please remember to check it daily, otherwise your membership is totally wasted.

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Once the upgrade got into full swing, we began receiving feedback split just about fifty fifty. Half of those contacting us congratulated us on the move, but the other half were suddenly very vocal in protesting the contacts they were receiving from non-listing members. Just as a side note, before finally deciding upon this two-tier level of memberships we had polled all current members requesting their opinions on the proposed change. Not one had responded with an objection!

Anyway, it was clear that we needed to appease the members suddenly unhappy with the two levels of memberships. Our programmers added a field to the page used to list a home exchange, specifically asking the Full (listing) member whether they wished to be contacted by: a) Full (listing) Members only, or b) Both Full and Associate Members, with the default being (a). In other words, if any Full Member was happy to receive contacts from Associate Members, he or she had to edit their listing(s) to indicate this.

Another change we’ve implemented is with the number of emails allowed to an Associate Member. When we initially allowed just five per day we thought that was sufficient to discourage abuse in the form of email spamming, but we were wrong. During February one person joined with four different memberships (identical IP addresses), so that he could send out sometimes 20+ spam emails per day. Thirty days later he had sent out more than five hundred emails.

He and a handful like him have forced us to limit the number of emails allowed for an Associate Member to be five total, as opposed to five per day.

Personally I’m extremely happy with these amendments. I’ve always firmly believed that a genuine, committed home exchange participant will always be happy to pay a small fee and join a club as a listing member, and many of my earlier posts have reflected as much. But, as the owner of a long-standing home exchange club, I also had to listen to, and act upon a continually voiced request from members and visitors alike. I think we’ve now resolved the issue to everyone’s satisfaction: those members who have no objection to being contacted by non-listing members can allow this to happen with a click of their mouse, and similarly, all members who are only comfortable being contacted by fellow “Full” members can implement this restriction, also with the click of their mouse.

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Finalizing your arrangements can be critically important and unfortunately it’s one aspect of home swapping that some members often pay the least attention to. In short – discuss everything that you feel is significant. Don’t ever be reluctant to raise a point you believe to be important, and once you’ve done so, make sure you follow it through to a satisfactory conclusion.

If any information your exchange partner provides is unclear, ALWAYS ask for an explanation. Sometimes there can be misunderstandings over terminology, even between people speaking and writing the same language.

Over the years, whenever members have contacted us to complain about some aspect of their home exchange, without fail we’ve always discovered one of two things:

1. The matter they’re dissatisfied with was never discussed and resolved during the process of finalizing the arrangements.
2. They didn’t bother with drawing up and having both parties sign a formal Home Exchange Agreement. An agreement is very important in avoiding any misunderstandings.

One experienced member with multiple swaps under her belt admitted to me the other day that she and her husband hadn’t bothered with a formal agreement BECAUSE they considered themselves experienced and therefore didn’t deem it to be necessary. They had just completed an exchange with a family who were completely new to the concept and from what I was able to gather, discussions had been minimal and the necessity of an agreement was never once addressed. Nothing major had gone wrong with the exchange, but there were several aspects where the other party had used the home and car somewhat liberally.

ExchangeHomes.com provides free access to a whole variety of Home Exchange Forms and documents, including an excellent Agreement. All of these can be downloaded Here. Scroll down the page to view the list.

We also recommend that once your Home Exchange Agreement is worded to the complete satisfaction of both parties, you use a web site such as EchSign.com to digitally sign it. All you have to do is upload or fax in an agreement that needs to be signed, and EchoSign e-mails it to the other party. This service is completely free.
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Don’t restrict your contacts to those that specifically list an interest in the area where you live. Approach the job from the opposite direction, by first isolating all the listings in the area you hope to exchange to. Eliminate any that would be poor matches due to the size of the home or composition of the family, then send a contact email to the remainder. All it costs you is a little time and you never know whose interest you may pique.

Having said that, don’t become one of the new brand of “[tag-tec]home exchange[/tag-tec] spammers” who fire off hundreds of contact emails, then only communicate further with those replies that they perceive as the cream, leaving the remainder wondering what is going on. That’s just plain bad manners.

Always respond to every contact email your receive, whether it’s a cold contact or a reply to your own mailing. This is one overriding issue we constantly have to deal with, members contact us unable to understand why their emails are receiving poor responses. Often it’s because the recipient’s email providers are directing the initial contacts straight into their spam folders and they empty the folder periodically without first checking its contents.

Another important tip involves broadening your horizons. The more flexible you can be with your destination and dates, the easier it will be to arrange a swap. In the scope of things it’s highly unlikely that any [tag-tec]home exchange[/tag-tec] company will be able to match you with [tag-tec]home exchange[/tag-tec] partners living in exactly the area you’re hoping to visit and seeking a swap to your location at identical dates to your own. Compromises play a huge role in successful home exchanges!
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To help our Home Exchange members, I asked a photographer friend for a few basic tips for amateurs hoping to produce some attractive, illustrative pictures to include in their home exchange listings. His words of wisdom follow …..

Use Digital Cameras Only With Still Shots

Most home-use digital cameras have a one- or two-second delay before shooting. That’s perfectly fine when taking a picture of your new car or the vineyards in the wine country of California. Photography school instructors warn, however, that digital cameras are not always great for shooting moving objects such as pets, wildlife, children in action or sporting events. If you have to be sure you get the shot at an exact moment, a film camera will work best.

Use Flash Outdoors

While flash is traditionally thought of as an indoor-only feature, it also has many applications outside. The sun can create shadows over faces and images. Pros know that using flash outdoors can counteract the effects of the sun on your photos.

Get Close

It’s a common mistake in amateur photography to take pictures of people from a far distance. The normal result is a picture with people so small they aren’t identifiable. For better pictures, get up close, so you can see the person’s face well. This way you can clearly see the person or people in the picture.

Photography is a combination of creative art and science. The more creative you become, the more interest you’ll find in your pictures. The more you know about the science of photography, the more control you’ll have over the outcome. Read articles (there are hundreds, even thousands on the Internet), practice and experiment. Soon, you’ll be taking expert-quality photos just like the pros!

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1. Set up your own personal web site dedicated to [tag-tec]home exchanging[/tag-tec]. Have sections devoted to your family, your home, pets, neighborhood and more general location. Describe any previous [tag-tec]home exchanges[/tag-tec] you may have taken.
   • Describe the amenities your home offers in great detail.
   • Go to town detailing special features.
   • Provide on-line links to any relevant manuals or fact sheets.
   • Illustrate the information with photographs.
2. Subscribe to one of the on-line photo albums such as PhotoBucket, MyPhotoAlbum or Flickr and pack it with lots of bright, cheerful, informative photographs.
3. If you have a video camera, use it to make a video introducing your home, family, pets, car (if it’s going to be part of an exchange), and add it to your online photo album (see suggestion 2 above).

Include links to these features in your online listing and also in every contact email you send out.

These features will make your listing much more interesting to prospective home exchange partners, but remember, don’t ever make the mistake of relying upon them to convey your message. Your listing with your online club is what will attract initial interest and if you fail there no-one will hang around to see any amount of extra features you may add.

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The way in which you set up your online listing for the world to see is often pivotal to your home exchange success. You need to clearly describe your home and the amenities it has to offer, then you need to introduce your family, your children, teens and give their ages. Explain any interests or hobbies you pursue—this will allow readers an opportunity to temp you with similar topics in their location.

Next, give some careful thought to a description of the area where your home is located. Your part of town. What shops are nearby? Are there churches, recreational facilities, a railway station, bus stop on a main route, doctor, dentist, pub, restaurant, garage?

Then step back and describe the vacation possibilities offered by a much larger surrounding area. What notable features are available for day trips? This is important because it allows readers to envisage your home exchange in a much bigger picture. They may very well be seeking a swap with one of the places you list as being comparatively close by.

Don’t imagine you are saving a few seconds of typing time by resorting to shortened word versions. These abbreviations are frequently not even understood by people from other countries, and just as important, the lack of care this implies gives a bad first impression about you as a likely home exchange partner. Readers will simply move on to an easier to read listing.

Answer all the multiple choice questions accurately and completely. All too often we find these have been skimped over and this is a shame, because on the ExchangeHomes.com web site, points from these are often pulled out as highlights in the listing’s full page display.

Finally, get clicking with your camera and take a whole variety of photographs illustrating your home and its location. If you’re asking for pet care it’s also an excellent idea to include a picture of the pets involved. Take more pictures than you will need then pick out just the best to add to your listing.

With ExchangeHomes.com you can add an unlimited number of photographs and explain each one with a caption.

I suggest you view your listing as a resume. It’s constantly stated that a resume’s first five seconds are critical. At that point the reader is either sufficiently impressed to continue, or tosses it aside. Just like a resume, your home exchange listing is competing with thousands of others. It has to qualify itself for further reading and consideration.

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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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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!

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© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

The first thing you will need to do is select a club. It’s very inadvisable to even think about cutting out this comparatively small expenditure and go it alone with classified advertisements or an ad on Craigslist, joining a club gives you the immediate peace of mind of knowing that you are joining a like minded group of people that have provided the organization with their personal information and in most cases have listed their own home exchange offer.

Club selection has in itself become a great deal easier with the launch of CHECtravel. With the recent explosive growth in the home exchange industry, an organization such as CHECTravel will do an immense amount to unite the legitimate clubs under an unbiased umbrella association. Both individual Home Exchange members and the clubs themselves can do nothing but benefit from the exceptionally high standards and code of conduct CHECTravel has established and pledges to maintain.

To pull a quote from their opening page:

“All of our affiliated clubs and individual CHEC members have been approved by an independent committee consisting of club owners, industry professionals and experienced home exchangers. CHEC-certified agencies have agreed to uphold CHEC’s high ethical standards of behavior for themselves and their members”.

Of course, CHECtravel has only just launched so there are a number of very good clubs not yet affiliated with them. Application and acceptance has to be a time consuming process. But without a doubt they are providing a very legitimate yardstick for newcomers to use.

More next time …..
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© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

Of course, that’s exactly what the ExchangeHomesBlog has always been about. It was given life with a purpose to help and advise, entertain and sometimes amuse home exchangers. But apparently a significant number of readers feel that a series of linked posts, taking them by the hand and walking them through the entire process would be beneficial, so, over a period of time, that’s what I will attempt to do. Look for the first post in this series very soon.

###articles###

© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

Whenever a member contacts us to take advantage of our guarantee whereby if they don’t arrange a home exchange during their first year, their second year is free, I always check their activity during the year using the logs, and as often as not find virtually none. It’s a sad fact that these people have found the concept of home exchanging sufficiently enticing to have enrolled a membership, but that’s as far as it went. Two members who recently requested a free second year had joined last year, both in February, then never logged in to their memberships again. No photographs had been added, not a single email sent out. Clearly they had forgotten all about us until our ‘Membership Expiring’ emails arrived in their in-boxes.

Similar to these members is the winner of Know your Trade’s  ’Capture The Crown’ contest in 2007. This lady’s listing won’t expire until later this summer, but to date, after receiving notification of her win she went online and set up her listing, but has never logged in since. No photographs added to her listing, not a single contact email sent out. It appears to have been a complete waste of a very well intentioned prize.

Of course sometimes people are extremely fortunate and do manage to successfully set up a home swap without any level of participation themselves, but it’s very, very rare. In fact if everyone followed this line of (in)action, the whole concept of home exchange would have died a death many decades ago!

The logs of virtually all the successful members record a high level of pro-activeness and participation, and if asked, they all will readily admit that this translates into half the fun. I never pretend that locating and setting up a successful home exchange is easy, but it can, without a doubt be memorable and extremely rewarding.

© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

Your contribution in this manner will be immensely helpful to your fellow members and the process is extremely simple. All you have to do is respond to a short list of questions covering both the home swap itself, and the condition in which you found your home upon your return. There is also a text area you can utilize to write about your experiences in your own words. The member being rated may find this section very useful to use as a reference.

We hope you will take the time to rate all your home exchanges, both past and yet to come. We want you to be completely honest and objective and share your experiences with everyone, whether they were positive or negative.

© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

Since our new web site went live just over a week ago we’ve carefully tracked the use of this search and I’ve been amazed by the results. Of the people who click the “More” link at the foot of “Our Latest Home Exchange Listings” on the home page, 47% then click to show only listings containing photographs. Obviously not everyone searches on Latest Home Exchange Listings, but for those that do this figure is especially significant and carries a very obvious implication: if your listing does not include photographs, its probably not even being viewed.

The solution is simple. Pick up your camera and get clicking. You don’t have to own a thousand dollars worth of photographic equipment to produce pleasing results; even bottom of the line digital cameras churn out pictures that are more than adequate for display on the Internet. Just make sure your photographs are light and bright and in focus, show the front and back of your house, plus the major rooms that your exchange partners will be using. Looking at photographs brings a definite sense of reality to your home exchange offer; without them, people may wonder what you are trying to hide.

© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

The key however is in the word “unmanaged”. ExchangeHomes.com offers good discounts for members who choose to purchase two and three year as well as lifetime memberships. All these extended memberships are managed, not just left to “rot on the tree”. After all, what good does a listing do us that’s displaying 2006 exchange dates in 2008?

On each listing’s anniversary it’s physically checked and if it includes outdated information of any kind it’s immediately suspended from view and its owner is emailed with a request to bring it up to date. We also record in the web site’s administration the date when each listing was last edited by its owner. If the contents appear to be current but the owner hasn’t actually logged into his/her listing for a considerable time, we also email them—this time just reminding them of their membership.

These emails are also an administrative goldmine because they immediately disclose any that are bad. When this occurs we have no alternative but resort to the telephone!

So—yes, unmanaged, multiple year listings are often nothing more than dead wood, surreptitiously enhancing perceived membership figures. Managed, they offer our members some great price deals!

© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

Since I started this home exchange blog, I believe this is the third time I’ve written a post dedicated to the subject of published dates, but unfortunately the emails and phone calls continue. People persist in accusing me of displaying out of date listings, when they are looking at the dates a member has published covering when he hopes to exchange.

Let me explain again. On our current web site we show the following dates:

1. The date the listing will expire
2. The member’s desired home exchange dates

Visitors repeatedly expect me to remove or hide a listing immediately option number 2 – the member’s desired home exchange dates are passed, irrespective of the listing’s actual expiration date. I attempted to explain to a man just a few days ago that each member whose listing he sees published as paid for it to appear on the ExchangeHomes.com web site for a given period of time and I would be guilty of fraud if I accepted memberships, but removed them from view before they actually expired. Regrettably, he didn’t agree with me.

I accept that it’s sometimes unfortunate when a member forgets to keep his or her listing’s dates current. I endeavor to stay on top of them with programmed reminders to myself of anniversary dates on a daily basis of listings that have joined for multiple years. I then check these listings and if the displayed exchange dates aren’t current, I drop the member a friendly email encouraging them to bring them up to date. Usually they do.

When our new, much anticipated web site goes live, the heading for dates will be changed slightly to:

1. Member since
2. Modified
3. Dates of Exchange


These changes reflect requests from members on how they would prefer to see the data displayed.

© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

]]> http://exchangehomesblog.com/general-home-exchange-info/home-exchange-dates-explained-again/feed/ 0 http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/home-exchange-2/ http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/home-exchange-2/#comments Fri, 16 Nov 2007 17:59:10 +0000 Anne http://exchangehomesblog.com/2007/11/16/home-exchange-web-site-upgrades-part-two/ Today I continue with an ongoing series of posts covering all the major features included in our pending ExchangeHomes.com web site upgrade.

Today I will concentrate on how your photographs will be displayed on the new web site—

Currently, members are limited to a maximum of six photographs. The new web site will have no limit. Members can add as many photographs to their listings are they wish.

Currently all photographs are displayed at a width of 3½ inches. On the new web site, members and visitors will initially see a page of “thumb nails”, each approximately 2½ inches wide (depending on whether or not they have a horizontal or vertical orientation). Accompanying each “thumb nail” will be a short, descriptive caption, for example: “master bedroom”, or “back garden”, or “front of house”. One “thumb nail” will also display on the listing’s main page.

From the page listing all the photographs, members and visitors will be able to click on each individually to bring it up in a full screen display. As members add photographs to their listings, we may, at our discretion, edit them for fast loading and to lighten them if they appear too dark, etc.

When the new web site goes live we will email all our members and urge them to log on to their listings as quickly as possible and replace their current photographs so that they will display in the manner I’ve described above. If they fail to do this they will miss the new opportunity to really “strut their stuff” pictorially!

Links to previous posts covering the upgrade—

• Membership Changes

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]]> http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/home-exchange-2/feed/ 0 http://exchangehomesblog.com/member-stories/home-exchange-requires-detailed-discussions/ http://exchangehomesblog.com/member-stories/home-exchange-requires-detailed-discussions/#comments Wed, 19 Sep 2007 16:11:56 +0000 Anne http://exchangehomesblog.com/2007/09/19/home-exchange-requires-detailed-discussions/ I heard this week from a somewhat disgruntled member from the US who had returned recently from an exchange with a family in the UK. He was delighted with the home he and his family had exchanged with, but he had been horrified when he climbed into the exchange car and discovered it was equipped with a stick shift.

My first question was: hadn’t he asked for full details about the car during discussions leading up to agreeing upon a home exchange? Also, hadn’t his exchange partner thought to include such pertinent information when he supplied his home exchange details?

It transpired that both parties had supplied very little information other than the size of the homes being offered, so in the circumstances it was a miracle that apart from the car, their home swap experiences passed without any more significant glitches or problems.

It really is critical that everything is discussed right down to the most minute detail before finally agreeing to go forward with a home exchange. Discussion is a pillar supporting the wntire arrangement. ExchangeHomes.com offers a Hints and Advice Book which can be both read online or downloaded via a PDF file, and only recently I gave an in depth review of an excellent new guide that I endorse wholeheartedly: Home Exchange Academy.

Both books walk you through the entire process of selecting and setting up a successful home exchange and both emphasize the need for in depth discussions. Home Exchange Academy supplies its readers with really excellent sample Home Exchange and Car Exchange Agreements and a great template for your Home Exchange Book – the document all exchangers should assemble to familiarize exchange partners both present and future with their home, its foibles and its surroundings and neighborhood.

Over the years (we began in 1986), I think I can fairly say that 99% of the home swapping problems we’ve heard about would never have occurred had the proper discussions taken place during the initial stages. Everyday items that seem small and insignificant to you may be a major problem for your visitor.

You may be used to your four storey home with some bedrooms at the very top; others could view that as a huge impediment. Your flat located in a busy street with a restaurant below it may be ideal for your lifestyle; others may hate lying in bed listening to late night diners leaving. You drive your stick-shift car day in and day out and never stop to visualize someone used to nothing but automatics trying to drive it.

© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

]]> http://exchangehomesblog.com/member-stories/home-exchange-requires-detailed-discussions/feed/ 0 http://exchangehomesblog.com/general-home-exchange-info/home-exchange-academy-ebook/ http://exchangehomesblog.com/general-home-exchange-info/home-exchange-academy-ebook/#comments Sun, 02 Sep 2007 14:28:51 +0000 Anne http://exchangehomesblog.com/2007/09/02/home-exchange-academy-ebook/ Home Exchange vacationing has been around for in excess of half a century and during that time, countless businesses have sprung up, eager to reap a living from promoting the concept.

A few have weathered the trials of time and still remain today, but the vast majority has fallen by the wayside, although quickly replaced by fresh contenders.

This has left the inexperienced swapper with next to no guidelines, no course of action when selecting a club to join. A few books on the general subject of home exchange have come and gone, but none have taken the aspiring home exchanger by the hand and walked him through the entire process step by step. That is, until now …

A brand new e-book—Home Exchange Academy—has just hit the market and I see it as a winner! Athena Ricky, the author has been home exchanging with her family for more than twenty five years, she’s the veteran of more than forty swaps so it’s not difficult to see where her depth of knowledge springs from.

The opening title describes the e-book as a “Blueprint to Swap Homes For Your Next Vacation and Get Out Of The Hotel Rut”, and that’s a perfect summation. Home Exchange Academy could not be more detailed. It explains exactly how to compare all the clubs presently available, what to look for on their web sites, plus the red flags to guard against.

Once a club has been chosen the author explains right down to the last detail exactly how to set up a listing, what text and information must be included. She also has some excellent suggestions for integrating more photographs and information than the website listings can accommodate.

Also covered in extensive detail are: correspondence between members, developing likely inquiries, preparing your home for an exchange, writing Home Exchange and Car Exchange Agreements, and creating a Home Exchange Book which provides visiting guests with detailed information about your home and its idiosyncrasies, emergency contacts and phone numbers, recommended local restaurants and attractions, plus much, much more.

Samples of these documents are incorporated in the e-book, plus purchasers can download actual working copies in Microsoft Word and PDF formats from the e-books website.

May potential home exchangers marvel at the notion of vacationing almost anywhere in the world, without ever having to pay for accommodation, but because of reservations about allowing “strangers” into their home, they continually resist making a commitment and joining a club themselves. I think this e-book does an exemplary job of allaying all those unfounded fears. As the Ms. Rickby so succinctly states:

“The question I’m most often asked by the uninitiated is: How do you trust complete strangers to live in your home for two weeks?

My response is usually concise and along the lines of: “How do they know they can trust me?”

I think those words speak volumes!

I especially like the author’s clearly expressed decision not to promote any current club above another within her book. She chooses not to reveal which clubs she herself belongs to and never so much as mentions any club by name. Instead, she walks her readers through how to search for, and list all the current clubs by dint of Google, Yahoo, etc. Surely, this tactic alone will keep her e-book fresh for significantly longer than would otherwise be possible, plus no club can feel slighted or complain because they have been left out.

For full details on this excellent e-book, go to: Home Exchange Academy.





© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

]]> http://exchangehomesblog.com/general-home-exchange-info/home-exchange-academy-ebook/feed/ 0 http://exchangehomesblog.com/general-home-exchange-info/home-exchange-moves-closer-to-home/ http://exchangehomesblog.com/general-home-exchange-info/home-exchange-moves-closer-to-home/#comments Sun, 12 Aug 2007 14:18:11 +0000 Anne http://exchangehomesblog.com/2007/08/12/home-exchange-moves-closer-to-home/ It’s becoming increasingly noticeable that the travel aspirations of many of our US members, both new and long standing, are shifting. The chronic fall in value of the US dollar against both the pound and euro has suddenly made it necessary for members to look closer to home for home exchanges.

Unfortunately it doesn’t end there. The rise in gasoline prices has had a trickle down effect, causing the everyday cost of living to hit the roof in America. Groceries and day to day commodities have all risen astronomically. Anything involving distribution by road (and what doesn’t?) has seen it’s price increase. This results in everyone having less money available at the end of the day to spend on vacationing.

Looking through the listings I’ve seen members in Southern California listing home exchange destinations in Tahoe, Reno, the Bay Area and Pacific Northwest. New Yorkers are seeking home swaps in New England, the Carolinas and Florida. Arizonians are looking to visit Mexico.

At the moment, internal air fares in the US are ridiculous and America is so huge that in most instances, driving to a home exchange destination is almost out of the question. Does anyone really want to spend the first and last two days of their vacation on the road?

I spoke with one of our members, a retired airline pilot the other day. He told me that he’s now so sick of what’s now involved in passing through an American Airport, he never intends to fly again! Strong words from a one time professional aviator.

© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

]]> http://exchangehomesblog.com/general-home-exchange-info/home-exchange-moves-closer-to-home/feed/ 0 http://exchangehomesblog.com/general-home-exchange-info/rental-properties-listed-on-home-exchange-websites/ http://exchangehomesblog.com/general-home-exchange-info/rental-properties-listed-on-home-exchange-websites/#comments Tue, 07 Aug 2007 15:10:12 +0000 Anne http://exchangehomesblog.com/2007/08/07/rental-properties-listed-on-home-exchange-websites/ At the moment there is an ongoing widespread discussion on some of the home exchange blogs about the questionable fact where many companies are turning a blind eye to owners of rentals who enroll their properties under the guise of being for home exchange, when nothing could be further from the truth.

The situation isn’t helped by the naiveté of the press and media who then look at these clubs’ enormously inflated membership numbers and immediately throw up their hands in glee and recommend them as being the “biggest” and “best”.

ExchangeHomes.com clearly publishes and enforces the following policy:

ExchangeHomes.Com is a HOME EXCHANGE organization. All properties listed with us must offer Home Exchange as the primary alternative. However, we do understand that many members do use a second or vacation home as their exchange property and provided that home exchange is their first alternative, they can list rental as a second option. Specific reference to rental charges etc., are not allowed. This information can be conveyed to interested parties after they initiate inquiries. Any listing that is reported to be soliciting for rental will be removed and no fees refunded.

This statement can be found on both our Membership Form and in our Frequently Asked Questions.


We also rigorously enforce all off-site links that members include in their listings and if they lead to blatant rental web sites, they are removed immediately.

We also check all edits that are made to listings throughout their membership period because a lot of rental owners will initially list with a very innocent description, only to replace everything with a full-blown rental advertisement after a couple of weeks, assuming we only check new listings for content.

Of course, we aren’t stupid, and we fully appreciate that there will always be rental property owners who appear to follow all the rules, but still expect to convert home exchange inquiries into rentals.

All we can do is ask our members to immediately report any instances of this to us and provided they can back up their claim with a copy of a written solicitation they have received, the offending listing is immediately removed.

We have taken this action on a number of occasions, and once or twice it’s caused unpleasantness. One rental owner called me a “Control freak” and another seemed to genuinely believe that because she was allowed to list and openly promote her rental with one of our rival companies, we were somehow obliged to provide her the same privileges.

She told me I was doing myself no favors by turning away her business. Well, I happen to disagree emphatically. As our Guidelines state, ExchangeHomes.com is a Home Exchange company.

Several years ago I tried running a rentals only web site parallel to the one for home exchange and I offered rental property owners listings at exactly the same price. If they added an obvious rental to ExchangeHomes, I even went so far as to move it to the other site for them. Their response was abysmal and after two years it closed. Clearly they are only interested in listing on the home exchange sites because they then gain immediate access to a prime database of travelers.

Well, maybe after all that rental property owner has got a point in as much as ExchangeHomes will more than likely never achieve huge membership numbers because we choose to turn away rentals, but at least I shall continue to have the moral satisfaction of knowing that I’m behaving ethically to our home exchange members.

© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

]]> http://exchangehomesblog.com/general-home-exchange-info/rental-properties-listed-on-home-exchange-websites/feed/ 0 http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/capture-the-crown-winner/ http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/capture-the-crown-winner/#comments Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:31:49 +0000 Anne http://exchangehomesblog.com/2007/07/12/capture-the-crown-winner/ The inaugural Capture the Crown Contest, run by the Home Exchange Queen and Know Your Trade closed on June 15th and I’ve been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to direct visitors to the winner’s listing on the ExchangeHomes.Com web site.

Unfortunately, the person the Queen selected as the winner took so long to reply to her initial email that she had just reached the point of deciding he was no longer interested. He replied in the nick of time before the prize was awarded elsewhere. But things have still not improved because I too have been emailing him, trying to encourage him to set up his prize membership, but his response to me is no better. Ten days and three emails later, I’ve heard nothing either.

To me this is a perfect example of how I see a great many of the listings displaying on the current proliferation of “free membership” home swap sites. No fee is involved therefore no commitment is implied. I believe that having to reach for a credit card in order to activate a membership really does separate the frivolous, spur-of-the-moment sign-ups from those genuine, responsible home exchangers.

I certainly don’t believe in charging disproportionate fees to ExchangeHomes.Com members. To do so would fly in the face of the true concept of home exchanging. However, I do need to cover my business expenses and, at the end of the day, make a moderate amount as a reward for my efforts.

We receive phone calls several times a week from people, wondering if it was our web site they joined a couple of months before. Possibly, had they been required to pay a small fee to join, they would have made more of an effort to note which one it was. Plus they could refer to their credit card receipt!

]]> http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/capture-the-crown-winner/feed/ 0 http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/home-exchange-and-sports-fans/ http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/home-exchange-and-sports-fans/#comments Tue, 19 Jun 2007 13:06:04 +0000 Anne http://exchangehomesblog.com/2007/06/19/home-exchange-and-sports-fans/ A great many people who home exchange are sports fans. Consequently, if the home you are offering to swap is located within easy reach of any sports venue, make sure you include this information in your listing.

The possibilities are virtually endless. Horse racing fans would love to participate in a home exchange which allowed them to attend the Epsom Derby, Royal Ascot, the Kentucky Derby, the Cheltenham Festical, the Prix de l’arc d’Triomphe, the Melbourne Cup, or maybe the Breeder’s Cup.

Formula One fans would love to set up a home exchange close to one of the Grand Prix venues (there are 17 of them), and there are lots of soccer fans all around the world who would give their right arm to attend a Manchester United game or maybe a game in the new Wembley Stadium.

Oarsmen could easily be tempted by a listing informing them that they would be close to the Henley Regatta; cyclists would probably love to see the Tour d’France.

Your options are enormous. Every sport imaginable has its own highlight events which attract droves of fans and home swappers should use these to their best advantage. Investigate how exchange partners can obtain tickets and mention that you’ve done this in your listing.

Sporting events very often make an otherwise mundane home exchange location into a prime destination, you just need to point out that your small town is actually just ten miles away from Epsom or twelve miles from Indianapolis. This information could make all the difference to the interest you generate in your listing.

© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

]]> http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/home-exchange-and-sports-fans/feed/ 0 http://exchangehomesblog.com/general-home-exchange-info/vanishing-home-exchange-companies/ http://exchangehomesblog.com/general-home-exchange-info/vanishing-home-exchange-companies/#comments Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:21:14 +0000 Anne http://exchangehomesblog.com/2007/06/13/vanishing-home-exchange-companies/ Yesterday I came across an article someone had posted on the Internet listing every possible home exchange company he could find. Many of the companies he included remain as household names in the home exchange community, but an unprecedented number were names I remembered hearing of over the years, then just as quickly forgetting, and when I clicked on the links the author had provided to their web sites they displayed “page cannot be found” errors.

The article was dated August 2004 and comprised 43 entries. Exactly twenty of them returned errors when clicked. Virtually half!

This fits almost exactly what is written by business experts, namely that fifty per cent of all new business start-ups fail in their first year.

But this is not the fact that saddens me. I projected my point of view through the eyes of the many members these clubs must have signed up, and I wondered just what opinion they now have of the home exchange industry generally.

I imagine that the majority of their memberships would have been completely new to the notion of home exchange vacationing, full of enthusiasm, eager to begin, yet at the same time unsure and cautious. What a pity that so many of them were probably badly let down and disillusioned when their home exchange company simply vanished.

In the past I know I’ve been accused of being somewhat intolerant of new clubs but this exactly illustrates my concerns. When ExchangeHomes.com launched back in 1986, my competition could be counted on my fingers (thumbs not included). ALL of these clubs remain today. Throughout the years that have followed, dozens and dozens of new organizations have appeared, briefly glowed and all but a very few have fizzled out.

It’s such a shame that new home exchangers have become compromised so fast. Let down by the clubs they elected to join they are probably lost to concept for ever.

© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

]]> http://exchangehomesblog.com/general-home-exchange-info/vanishing-home-exchange-companies/feed/ 0 http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/home-exchange-and-swapping-cars/ http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/home-exchange-and-swapping-cars/#comments Thu, 07 Jun 2007 21:01:45 +0000 Anne http://exchangehomesblog.com/2007/06/08/home-exchange-and-swapping-cars/ As I advise members all the time, offering to exchange the family car as part of the home exchange deal is one of the best incentives you can include. Car rentals are currently very expensive – on a recent trip to the UK my husband paid more to rent a car than he did for his flight across from Dallas. Also, in a weeks time we have family visiting so I’ve rented a 7-seater van to accommodate everyone. The cost for 7 days is $450.00 and that’s in the US. In Europe expect to pay significantly more!


With a little additional planning, vehicles can usually be exchanged very amicably. Never be afraid to stipulate restrictions such as no driver under the age of 25, not to exceed 1,000 miles (just an example here), and always stipulate that the car should not be driven outside of your home country.

Most insurance companies don’t object, once the situation is explained to them, because often the person you are dealing with has never heard of home exchange.

Be sure to make it absolutely clear that you require coverage for a guest or friend to drive your car, NOT someone who is renting your home.

Over the years I’ve heard of just a couple of instances where an insurance company has flat out refused to cover their clients home exchange partners. The most common occurrence is that they will charge an administration fee to add a name to the policy. Members have also run into difficulties if their home swap is for more than 30 days. As a rule of thumb, 30 days is usually the limit before insurance companies do wave a red flag.

© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

]]> http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/home-exchange-and-swapping-cars/feed/ 1 http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/42/ http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/42/#comments Thu, 17 May 2007 20:29:11 +0000 Anne http://exchangehomesblog.com/2007/05/18/42/ We have been hearing again from disappointed members who send out exchange offers but fail to receive any sort of a response. This is a continuing gripe being dealt with by all the home exchange companies as well as the blogs devoted to home exchanging. The excellent blog Home Exchange Travels opened this Wednesday’s post with a reference to the problem.

It really is disappointing when you join a club and send out your first contact emails, only to receive nothing in return. Even a short “no thanks” is better than absolutely nothing. As I’ve already explained in earlier posts there may a whole list of reasons why they don’t respond – they may be away, their Internet provider may have routed your message straight into their spam folder (a more and more frequent explanation), they may be overwhelmed with emails and just missed yours. Or, they may simply be lacking in basic good manners.

It could be the way you worded your inquiry. Many more seasoned home exchangers are immediately put off when they receive an email similar to: “Want to exchange in August. Take a look at my listing number 26***”. One or two have been very candid with me and admitted that whenever they receive impersonal messages similar to that one, they just hit the delete button.

Perhaps the following suggestions will help increase your chances of getting responses:

Never send out standard, impersonal messages such as the example above. Use your word processor to prepare detailed information about your home, family and local area to copy and paste into all your messages but take the time to personalize each message before you actually send it. On the ExchangeHomes.com website you won’t be able to address the people you are emailing by name because of our privacy guards, but you can mention anything that especially attracted you to his/her offer because everyone likes to hear nice things about their home and its surroundings!

Say if you can be flexible on dates and/or length of exchange. Indicate that once they have viewed your offer, you will be willing to answer any questions they may have. Direct them to any additional photographs or videos you may have posted on one of the multitude of free picture hosting web sites. Make it obvious that you are genuinely interested in their offer and are prepared to make every effort to make an exchange happen if they too are interested in exploring the possibility further.

In closing, always ask them to reply to your message as soon as possible as you are anxious to hear back even if they aren’t interested your offer right now. Explain that this will then allow you to look elsewhere.

I hope this helps. Previous postings on this have also covered this same difficult issue and I suggest you take a look at them as well.

Home Exchange and the Spam Dilema Posted 2007/04/05. (Previously posted in January 2007 on our old BlogSpot Blog.
ISPS Spam Tools Posted 2007/04/18.

© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

]]> http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/42/feed/ 0 http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/isps-spam-tools/ http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/isps-spam-tools/#comments Wed, 18 Apr 2007 14:28:27 +0000 Anne http://exchangehomesblog.com/?p=23 Home Exchange Blog
This is a follow-up to my earlier post warning home exchange members to be vigilant and check their spam folders for legitimate emails mis-routed by their ISP.

Last week ExchangeHomes.com discovered that none of our emails to members who access the Internet via Comcast were getting through, not even to their spam folders. Comcast had unilaterally decided that we were spammers and any mail arriving from us was being blacklisted and removed by their programming.

To put it mildly, this was scary. To date, Comcast is the first company I’d heard of to adopt this arbitrary stance, but research indicates that ATT has a similar policy and in all likelihood, others will follow.

Comcast clearly perceived us as spammers because the incoming mail from us had reached a questionable figure. What that figure is, I have not been able to find out, but it has to be ridiculously low. ExchangeHomes.com doesn’t have that many members who subscribe to Comcast – possibly 100 – and unless those members have corresponded with us after joining, the only two “form emails” they would have received from us are their payment receipt and Welcome email. I cannot see how a total of possibly 300 emails, spread out over a period of time can reasonably brand us as spammers.

Surely Comcast should let consumers make the decisions regarding protection against spam unless, possibly they are dealing with hard-core spammers. It just doesn’t make sense that legitimate emails their clients want is being ‘blacklisted’, but they continue to receive email advertisements for sex products and pharmaceuticals.

Following my protests, Comcast had ExchangeHomes.com removed from their spam rolls. Email from us now travels unencumbered through the internet to their clients. However, because of this experience, I fully expect to find myself dealing with similar situations in the future.

© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

]]> http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/isps-spam-tools/feed/ 0 http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/no-out-of-date-listings-here/ http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/no-out-of-date-listings-here/#comments Sat, 14 Apr 2007 15:13:08 +0000 Anne http://exchangehomesblog.com/?p=19 Home Exchange Blog
Occasionally I receive phone calls and emails informing me that we are displaying old, out of date listings. I inquire which listings they are referring to and, of course they are never out of date. Our programming hides all listings as a matter of course immediately they reach their expiration date.

In every case, these people are looking at the published exchange dates, not the expiration date which is clearly displayed at the top of the listing, immediately below its location. They perceive a listing as being out of date if they are viewing it in September and it shows that the owner was seeking an exchange during June or July. The fact that the member joined in January with a twelve month membership which expires the following January is seldom considered. Some people we discuss this with find it very difficult to understand why we don’t hide listings immediately the published exchange dates are passed.

I agree that they may find it frustrating to view a listing that shows its owner was seeking an exchange during a time gone by, but there’s nothing to stop them emailing an inquiry. Many an exchange takes place because a member was intrigued by an unexpected invitation.

I also agree that it would be a good idea if more members utilized the “Exchange Arranged” facility if they are no longer actively seeking an exchange, or, revised their dates if they have so far been unsuccessful in arranging an exchange.

But, at the end of they day, each membership is purchased for a specific time and we cannot take it upon ourselves to hide or remove any that have not had their exchange dates edited.

© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

]]> http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/no-out-of-date-listings-here/feed/ 0 http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/the-new-home-exchange-shorthand/ http://exchangehomesblog.com/about-your-listing/the-new-home-exchange-shorthand/#comments Mon, 09 Apr 2007 16:43:55 +0000 Anne http://exchangehomesblog.com/?p=13 Home Exchange Blog
What is with this new brand of shorthand that is being used in our home exchange postings?

“Sng.sty.cot w/sm.kit,2bd,2ba. 1hr2st.cap. Cls2mtns +se.lg.lks” is hard enough for me to decipher; imagine someone whose first language doesn’t happen to be English trying to fathom what the member is trying to say!

I’ve noticed this shorthand creeping into the text of the listings more and more, and for the sake of clarity and ease of use among members, we always edit it so that it’s more user friendly and readable.

It’s regrettable that we need to do so because I think it’s especially important that each listing reflects the personality of its owner. On the other hand, a listing comprised of nothing but cryptic symbols and abbreviations does absolutely nothing to promote itself. If it’s unfathomable to fellow members they move on to the next one which is, after all, just a mouse click away.

Unfortunately, the trend is also spilling over into the contact emails being sent out. Last week a French member sent me a copy of an email she had received. I won’t quote it verbatim because I don’t want to embarrass the English member who sent it, but suffice to say it was comprised almost entirely of “sm, lg, w/, w/o, rm, bd, ba, strs, gdn, mls, mins and hrs”.

We can keep an eye on the actual listings and make sure they are legible, but the emails members send out need to make that initial great impression. The French member was courteous enough to ask for help, but I’m sure many similar emails just get deleted, and that defeats the purpose entirely.

© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

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