Home swapping

Web-based services can help you enjoy a vacation on the cheap by swapping your place for one in an exotic locale

Have the slumping U.S. dollar and rising gas prices put a crimp in your travel plans? If you can swap homes with a family that lives where you want to go, you can cut out the hotel bill.

Bill and Cathy Graham of Overland Park, Kan., for example, have swapped their two-bedroom vacation condo in Breckenridge, Colo., for a Parisian pied-à-terre, a suburban Sydney home, and a New Zealand beach bungalow. The Grahams, like thousands of Americans, have signed up with Web-based services that help them to exchange homes with families here and abroad (see Swap shops).

Matching up

“It’s the most affordable way to travel,” says Marla Loftus. She and her husband, Michael, traded their barrier-island home off Charleston, S.C., for 16 days in Provence, saving at least $3,000. “Spending over two weeks in Europe would have been financially challenging this year,” Loftus says.

Lisa Mann parlayed her four-bedroom home in Petaluma, Calif., into stays in Denmark, Lake Tahoe, Iceland, and Hawaii. Accommodations with kitchenette at a three-star Waikiki hotel for Mann, her husband, and three teenage children would have run about $4,000. “Plus we used their boogie boards and kayaks and even swapped cars,” Mann says.

The Grahams paid for only two nights at a motel during a month in Australia and New Zealand. In July they cobbled together three exchanges for a three-week visit to Ireland and Scotland. “With the poor exchange rate, we would have probably postponed such a trip,” Bill Graham says. “But when you set aside the cost of lodging, it opens up a world of opportunity.”

You don’t have to own a home in a resort town or in the heart of a big city to successfully swap. Leslie and Paul Mahoney and their three children ages 10 to 14 have traded their four-bedroom home about 20 miles outside Boston for stays in the Alps, Quebec City, Maine, and New York City. “When the children were little, we spent three fabulous weeks in northwest France,” Leslie recalls. “The house had a pool, and the family’s kids were the same age, so toys, bikes, and car seats all matched up.”

The right match makes all the difference. Start with the basics: Are the dates going to work? Does the home meet your needs? Is it in the right area? Read listings in detail and look for house dos and don’ts—pets, children, smoking. “If you have young children, you’ll want a similar swap so the place is childproof,” says Helen Bergstein, founder and president of Digsville, an online home-exchange service. “Empty-nesters may want to exchange with someone in a similar stage.”

To create a listing, write a description of your home, area, and lifestyle and include photos. Before agreeing to a swap, ask for referrals and read member comments. Firm up plans by e-mail and phone calls. The only costs are exchange membership fees and perhaps a housecleaning service for before and/or after the swap.

Live like locals

And the risk? Minimal. In 16 years Ed Kushins, president of HomeExchange.com, says he’s never received a report of malicious misrepresentation, theft, or damage. Often your home is even cleaner than you left it when you return.

Veteran swappers say snafus usually are the type you chuckle about afterward. During a two-week exchange in Denmark, Michael Loftus spread what he thought was jam onto bread only to discover it was fish paste. Mann has encountered washing machines with words 26 letters long.

Swapping saves money, yet it’s the cultural immersion that exchangers find most appealing. For two weeks, New Orleans retiree Sammye Levy and two friends lived like locals in a Paris apartment, saving about $325 a day. They shopped at local markets for breakfast and dinner and were charmed by a 12-year-old neighbor eager to offer assistance and practice his English. While she was out, the boy slipped a note under the door that said, “You are trouble. If you need me call this number.”