Experience with house swaps?

Old Oct 9th, 2007, 06:11 AM
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Experience with house swaps?

We're considering a house swap. We have a place on the Florida Atlantic coast that we're looking to swap for something in southern Italy or maybe Germany.

Had any experience with a house swap? The good? The bad?

Thanks
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Old Oct 9th, 2007, 06:39 AM
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We've done three: a month in Paris, three weeks in Provence, and three weeks in Mendocino. We're currently in negotiation for three months in Paris this summer. All were done on Craigs List and all have been wonderful experiences. In two, we swapped cars as well. Everything went beautifully. It's the only way to travel, I believe.
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Old Oct 9th, 2007, 06:41 AM
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Have a look at this thread:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...2&tid=34933539
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Old Oct 9th, 2007, 06:59 AM
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We've done them as well, both in the US, we live outside of DC, and in Europe. We've not had any issues and have found our house clean and in good shape. Our destination homes have been really nice as well. We've also exchanged cars as part of the exchange and taken care of cats and chickens.

I've found you have to be fairly flexible in where you travel as you are in some ways dictated by the offers you receive and deals you are able to initiate. Additionally, because many exchanges can be for multiple weeks you have to be comfortable with a base and daytrips in one area. We're ok with this but many people prefer to go at a much faster pace and cover lots of ground.

For us it is a great way to afford traveling longer and more often and to really experience places.
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Old Oct 9th, 2007, 07:12 AM
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Great responses so far, and a special thanks to Zerlina for the connection to the thread. The part about vehicles is especially informative.

Hadn't thought of craigslist as a source. Sounds promising.

We are fairly flexible. I was thinking we'd concentrate our availability to sometime in Mar-April, since it seems a lot of people want to come to Florida then.

Welcome further responses.
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Old Oct 9th, 2007, 07:35 AM
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It's interesting that on Craigslist, if you go to most cities, you can click on "Housing Swap" and find vacation exchanges, but in our Ft. Myers/Naples "Housing Swap" they are all about sales or permanent swaps. I've actually responded to a couple of listings there that were unclear and immediately got responses that they were looking for a permanent trade.
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Old Oct 9th, 2007, 11:44 AM
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Oh-o-o I'm interested. I'm on the east coast of Fl. Just a nothing town- Port-St. Lucie, 45 minutes from West Palm and all down there- would that be of interest or do swapers want more up-scale locations?

neopatrick: What do you mean "they want permanent" the europeans?
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Old Oct 9th, 2007, 11:51 AM
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No, the "housing swaps" on Craigslist here will say something like "My Tennessee 3 bedroom for a Ft. Myers condo" and what they mean is they want to permanently trade residences. The Tennessee person wants the Ft. Myers person to trade title of ownership.

In fact many of the listings are even for local people wanting to permanently trade residences with others in this area (will trade condo for home with yard, etc.). All of those are for permanent exchange of title.
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Old Oct 9th, 2007, 12:02 PM
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Nothing venture, nothing win, virgi: but you may well need to think a bit about how to market where you live. Would it appeal more to people who want a beach resort for a young family, or a base for adventurous outdoors-y adults - that sort of thing.

I don't think you can generalise about people who do house swaps any more than about any other group of people, but I don't think you need worry that they're all out for up-market show homes. There's a touch of "champagne tastes on beer-bottle incomes", but that probably applies to going further afield for longer, rather than expecting to stay in Blenheim Palace.
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