Home Exchange: I Could Never Do That!
3 reasons I consistently hear from people why (in their opinion), home exchanging would be impossible for them!
- I couldn’t possibly trust strangers in my own home.
- Yes you can. Your exchange partners will be trusting you to live in their home responsibly and ethically so why should they be any less trustworthy than you? Home exchanges aren’t arranged in one day, after a couple of emails. In fact arrangements and discussions leading up to those arrangements frequently extend over several weeks, dozens of emails as well as several phone calls, instant messages, etc. Eventually this all culminates in the exchange of a written and signed agreement. In short, you get to know each other very well. You certainly are not “strangers”.
- Also, provided you’ve found your exchange partners through a legitimate home exchange company that charges a Membership fee, all their personal information will have been been verified and recorded. In short, they are who they say they are. It’s extremely unlikely that anyone is going to provide their personal contact information to pay for a membership then travel hundreds, maybe thousands of miles to rip-off your new blue-ray player.
- I don’t live in an accepted tourist area. No-one would ever want to exchange with me.
- Yes they will. A great many home exchangers enjoy experiencing new lifestyles and exploring places off the beaten track. In fact they actively avoid the usual tourist traps, in favor of more stimulating places. They are seasoned travelers, often professionals, and their prime consideration is to experience the true day-to-day living of a country or location.
- My home is small and “ordinary”, nothing like some of the homes I’ve been looking at on home exchange sites
- You may be surprised. Go back to some of those sites and do a search on homes already on offer in your area. How do they compare? Are there a lot of homes listed? If there are it must be a popular location. Are there very few? Scarcity could work in your favor as well. Published photographs will give you a reasonable idea of the neighborhoods where the homes are listed; are they more up-scale than yours? If not, this could be to your advantage.
How do the homes listed compare for size? Are they similar in appearance? How do the homes that are actually listed compare with the average home in the same general area?
If, when making an unbiased comparison, your home home appears to come somewhere in the middle, maybe not as grand as some, but definitely better than others, there is no reason at all why you shouldn’t expect to home exchange successfully. If, on the other hand, all the other homes still appear to be better, what steps can you take to implement improvements? A coat of paint … another bed … some shrubs and pretty flowers in the front yard … a theme park pass … tickets to a sports venue?
Put yourself in your potential exchange partner’s shoes and ask yourself what you would like to do if you were visiting your location for the first time. Arrange for the necessary passes / tickets then make their existence VERY clear both in your home exchange listing, and in all the inquiry emails you send out.
With all three points I’ve listed, positive thinking and a small helping of ingenuity is the answer!
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