Lately we’ve heard several news regarding flash floods, wildfires and earthquakes that caused more or less serious problems or damages.
Whatever the gravity of the natural disaster (we are thinking of regions afflicted by tornadoes or areas not prepared for sudden water-floods), if unluckily it happens during our home swapping period, it is very important to be provident and ready to cope with the unpleasant event.

That’s why it is essential to leave clear and precise instructions in case of any emergencies when we arrange our home exchange. Useful phone numbers and addresses must be exchanged: police, ambulance, hospital, doctor, fire brigade, veterinarian (if we are “swapping” our pets too), mountain rescue (if we have planned to go hiking or trekking), disaster relief, breakdown service…If the list seems long and obsessively exaggerated just think that it is better to be safe than sorry.

Also, if during our home exchange we’ll be looking after our home exchange partners’ pets, let’s be sure that we know what to do with them in case of emergency (where to bring them, etc.). Moreover, if our swapper has a very expensive Jaguar or Ferrari in the garage, make sure that someone has the keys to move it in case of need. And viceversa.

It is very important to communicate and to build confidence with our home exchange partners, as we pointed out in a previous post.

Planning a house swap has many advantages, but in order to leave serenely it is worth thinking also to the “safety details”. For instance, it is imperative to have our home exchange partners’ phone number as well as a neighbour’s or a relative’s (people that may know the house and have a copy of the keys).

Who has ever been to Berlin?

We want to suggest Berlin as an excellent destination for a home exchange: for its art, culture, history, beauty, night and day life, the multicultural environment…

Brandeburg Gate

If you have ever been to Berlin send us any suggestions, tips,c omments, stories regarding Berlin. They will be more than welcome!

The main doubt when we talk about house swapping is related to confidence and trust.
How can I trust someone I don’t know and exchange my house?

The magic trick is here: we have to become familiar with our swappers so that they won’t be strangers anymore.

HOW?

C o m m u n i c a t i n g !

Communication: the key for a successful home exchange

Well, I guess that in the telecommunications and virtual dialogues era this won’t be very difficult. We have plenty of means to communicate, to exchange information, words, photos, experiences, opinions.

We can write, talk and see each other. By and a (webcam) we can also have a virtual tour through the other house.

When we get or send an offer to someone’s house, we can start exchanging letters or postcards. Once the address is confirmed, at our leisure, we’ll begin to build confidence with our possible home swappers. We can also prefer the quicker e-mails.

Casitas dels pins - Esther Fuldauer

Home exchanges gave birth to many new friendships.

At first strangers, house swappers become acquaintances and then friends. Living in the respective houses for a while will add a touch of specialness and confidence to our friendship.

We can exchange details and photos of our houses and the surroundings, make questions, solve any doubts, get suggestions about possible trips, venues, pubs, theatres, cinemas, things to do… During this exchange full of everything we’ll surely have the time and the possibility to see if these people are good for us, if we can trust them, if we like them (and if they like us).

In most cases you won’t wait for long before finding the most suitable home exchange.

After this process, in fact, all the conditions, the exchange type, the availability of the house, how and when exchanging our houses have to be decided by the two owners (or tenants).

For this reason we recommend to get in touch with the other owner and make him the offer we’re most interested in. It’s very likely that, if we communicate and build a good relationship, there won’t be any kind of problems during our home exchange.

In a home exchange there isn’t any money transaction, so that it can’t be considered as a sublet.

It’s as if you were inviting some friends to stay at your place, thing that every tenant has the right to do. So the house swapping option is good also for who doesn’t own a house.

Tenants too will therefore be able to benefit from house swap advantages:

• Accommodation cost zeroing;
• Possibility of preparing meals comfortably at home (with the additional option of a typical food exchange);
• Possibility of exchanging cars and therefore saving even more money;
• See the city from the inhabitants “inside” point of view;
• Not having timetables for breakfast, lunch, dinner, leaving the house;
• Chance to get a bigger or more expensive house than ours;
• Possibility of bringing along our pets;
• …

In tenants’ case what we could suggest is asking, anyway and for reasons of courtesy and politeness, to our landlord if he/she is fine with the home exchange.

Just to be on the safe side.

Normally holidays and savings don’t get on well.

In the home exchange case things are different. Many people don’t exchange their house because of money but for fun, adventure, amusement, excitement, to know new people…

Whatever may be the reason, the saving we get on the total cost of our holiday is important and worth taking into account, especially for those family that normally can’t afford a good vacation because of its cost.

House swapping gives us a lot of advantages.

Even though we could get quite a few accommodation options (hotels, hostels, B&B, camping…), they all have a cost.

The accommodation cost in a house swapping instead is ZERO.

Saving money...

Let’s do a trial.

I’ll look for a hotel -let’s say in Paris- for two people. How much will it cost?

Number of people: 2

Nights: 5 (from 1st of December)

Area: let’s try with… Champs Elisée? I choose just one of the many options. A French hotels search engine (http://www.hotels-paris.fr) tells me that it will show me the best offers.

I get more than 40 sorted by offer price. The cheapest is 395€ with a 47% discount, otherwise it would have cost so much as 745€! The second available offer climbs to 435€ and both the offers were for two stars hotels, breakfast NOT included. Immediately they push up the bidding to 800€ or more for 3 stars hotels (not even 4).

Do your accounts. Doing a home exchange would make us SAVE A LOT OF MONEY. As a minimum, in this case, we could save 395€…But apart from this aspect we have to consider the “food-aspect”. Rather than going out every day to have lunch or dinner we could stay at home and making our own meal. Maybe we won’t have everything ready and waiting, but the saving offered by the house swapping is huge and evident. And also welcome, given the crisis we’re passing through.

It is estimated that the value of the average saving for a numerous family could be of 1000€, comparing house swapping to the other available options.

Consider that the only cost you have is the journey. Once there, you would spend as if you were at home.

Not bad. Shall we plan a home exchange then?

The trust rule.

Trust is a perpetual changing concept. Daily we get more and more options, technologies, choices: the increasing complexity of our world makes harder trusting something or someone. Not that we don’t have anyone or anything to trust: it’s just that the options are…too many.
House swapping is different…It is a trustworthy concept.
Think simply that the people we are swapping our house with will let us their home too.
And home is only one: it has an important emotional value as well as an economic one.
If they give us their home why not having trust? I’ll give mine in exchange.

Focus on the fact that when our swappers stay in our house, we stay in theirs. For that reason we’ll look after their house in the same way we would like them to take care of ours.

Nobody so far has complained about the state of the house when coming back from a home exchange.
Exchanging our house with someone else is an act of mutual trust worth considering.

It is an intelligent choice that makes us save money and enjoy our holidays in a new city from a different point of view…The “native” point of view. It’s as if the home exchange gave us the opportunity of having…a second life!

Home Exchange: Getting Two Lives and trust.

Let’s have trust!
I’ll swap my house.

A lot of people will wonder how going on home exchange is.
They will have doubts and fears in giving their house to a stranger. A part of these doubts is legitimate.
Even so there are several aspects to take into account that can make our fears disappear.

Trying this kind of experience is not only a question of money, although you are going to save a lot. Money is a tiny part of the whole.
Therefore I’d like to focus on a specific psychological aspect of the issue.

Let’s try to imagine ourselves in the HOME EXCHANGE SITUATION.
You have a house, a life made of people, habits, routine, time and spaces…
At this point you should bear in mind that also the other person (the swapper) has all these things, though in a different way.

You have the unique opportunity to borrow all these things from this other person. You can turn our backs on everything, leave our ordinary life and begin, try a new one (alone or with our family).

If one is well-disposed will certainly meet new people, probably friends or acquaintances of our swapper…You can see different places, colours… You can go native, somehow. Even a banal supermarket will seem something special.
You’ll be foreigners but native at the same time.
You can take possession of a place that is not only “walls”, but rather a place soaked with life, with experience. You can wake up at day break (or even later if you prefer… ;)) at home (your new one) instead of doing it in an anonymous hotel room. You can stare at a different sky; learn a new route to get to the supermarket or to the newsagent’s, breathe a cleaner or simply different air… In conclusion, you could get the possibility, for yourself and your family, to have a new life (though for a short time).
The occasion of getting a life en plus, given to us by the home-exchange, seems incredible to me.

And it is pretty sure that this new life will be less stressful and will have all the advantages of being limited in time and unique and more genuine just because led in a true house, usually lived throughout its days and nights.

Which other way do we have to live two lives?