Unfair Home Exchange

The BBF and I recently dropped $99.95 to sign up for homeexchange.com. Home Exchange is like Wife Swap, but with houses. Those of you who lack both wives and houses are basically nonentities in this new global economy.

The concept behind Home Exchange is brilliant. You own a house in Malibu and you have always wanted to visit Barcelona. A homeowner in Barcelona has always wanted to visit Malibu. They trade houses for a few weeks. [Wait – this sounds like a great idea for a bad romantic comedy.]

Brilliant! Except once you log into the site, you see that every other house listed is a) a mansion; b) a mansion overlooking the Cote d’Azur; or c) a mansion with a helicopter landing pad on the roof. The BBF and I are advertising our proximity to Monticello and our washer/dryer hookup, and other homeowners are advertising their yachts and heated pools. So I’m not sure this home exchange concept will work out for us. We need something in the quality of life area between Homeexchange.com and Couchsurfing.com. But I’m still hoping someone on the former site will say, “Forget Manhattan. Forget Paris. I want to wash my clothes in a modest ranch home in Charlottesville, Virginia.” And P.S., we include the use of a station wagon.

8 Thoughts on “Unfair Home Exchange

  1. So, You’re famous now?
    In the Cville, huh?

  2. That station wagon is a Saturn by the way (brag)

  3. Throw in access to your liquor cabinet and you’ve got a deal…

    Just let us know when you’d like to spend a week in our dilapidated and drafty turn-of-the-century row house, complete with maple floors and asbestos-laden plumbing. There’s even a rusty shed/ “charming cottage” in the backyard!
    Best of all, we live in a small town in North Dakota!

    I know, it’s too good to be true.

  4. wistar – what a great idea! I have been wondering how to go somewhere and now i know…you sent me on a googling search. How/why did you choose that website in particular? I found this story with a few listed (www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16371926/). What did you like about the one you chose?

  5. oh – and you can come visit roanoke anytime.

  6. Hi Wistar

    Glad you have discovered home exchange but please don’t despair and think everyone else has a better home to offer than you do. Do a little more browsing and you should see there are homes of all types, sizes and locations. Some people are better at making their exchange offer sound wonderful, even if their home may be modest. Generally, as long as a home is big enough to sleep their exchange party comfortably, most exchangers are looking primarily at location. And, as home exchangers are independent travellers, they are often attracted to areas well away from tourists. So look at your area from a visitor’s point of view – what are some of the fun things to do in and around Charlottesville that would be interesting to visitors from another country who want to experience the ‘real America’?

    I hope that anyone interested in finding out more about home exchange might like to check out my blog, Travel the Home Exchange Way:

    http://homeexchangetravel.blogs.com

    Cheers from (rainy) London,
    Lois

  7. I love this. Together, we are going to put the hotel industry out of business. Home owners unite! I think we can make Charlottesville, Roanoke, and Grand Forks the next international vacation destinations.

    Brooke, I had no idea there were so many similar websites. Have you signed up for any of them? Don’t you own, like, five houses? You could host a royal family. Or some Catholics.

    By the way, I am not actually a homeowner; the bbf is. But I’m firmly attached to him and I often run the dishwasher. Besides, it would be difficult to maintain both my fame and my mortgage payments at the same time.

  8. Pip Lewis on January 20, 2008 at 1:38 pm said:

    I too wonder why you chose this site. I’ve looked at it a couple of times and it seems half their listings are out and out rentals – not home exchanges at all.

    I thought they were advertising that they were a HOME EXCHANGE COMPANY!!!

    There are plenty of good, GENUINE home exchange organizations out there and they charge a significant amount less than the $99.00 you paid and provide you with lots of regular HOME EXCHANGES.

    Better luck next time!

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