No Money And You Desperately Need A Holiday?

July 22nd, 2010

Your family is yelling at you to take them outa here

Have you ever thought about home swapping? This UK family with 2 teenage children did. They are flying off to Hong Kong for a three-week break and a Hong Kong family they have never met will come and live in their four-bedroom detached house in Yorkshire. The English mother is frantically cleaning and fixing up the house for the swap. Already she has scraped off the dead ivy from the front wall, cleared the cupboard under the stairs and dusted off a baby’s cot, which then had to be assembled.

“I am exhausted and when I think of all the packing and cleaning I’ve yet to do, I feel even more shattered,” says Liz, 47.

A hard year

“It’s been a tough year businesswise and there is simply not enough money for a holiday in a decent hotel. Someone told me about the idea of swapping homes for 3 or 4 weeks with another family in a similar situation and we decided to try it.” To many, the thought of strangers sleeping in your bed, nosing in your underwear drawer, meeting your neighbors, and even driving your car, will seem like the stuff of nightmares.

Home swapping sites

The practice is a real hit with the middle classes, who value nothing more than a recession-beating break that will prove the envy of their friends. Families are clamoring to find the plushest houses in foreign climes and competition is fierce. “Holiday swap” Internet sites are listing hundreds of upmarket homes in Britain which families are keen to swap with similar properties abroad. Luxehomeswap.com, one of the sites set up to cater for middle-class home-swappers, boasts that it offers only “house-swapping holidays for people with homes they’re proud of”.  Another, Homelink, claims on its site: “Most of our members are in an upper income bracket, well-educated and experienced travelers.”

The downside

Home swapping does have a downside. As well as leaving your house spotless, many sites recommend leaving two clean sheets per bed, two sets of towels per visitor and basic groceries, including the makings of a first meal. If that isn’t enough, a bottle of champagne is further recommended “to welcome your guests”. Then there is the home manual you must compile, including local tourist information, suggestions of friends they can meet during their stay, plus reminders of which day the rubbish is collected and recommendations for babysitters, dentists, doctors and restaurants. Many swappers expect to drive your car, and you will need to tell your car and house insurance of your plans.

The upside

But Caroline Connolly, of Homelink says swaps rarely go wrong: “We have a Home and Car Exchange Agreement form to avoid misunderstandings and clarify who pays for bills and other things such as insurance excesses in the case of accidents. The small numbers of complaints we do receive are to do with ‘housekeeping standards’. And if we did have a genuine concern about a swapper, they would immediately be expelled from the site.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 at 2:26 am and is filed under Economy, Personal / Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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