Free home exchange
I have operated three home exchange businesses over the past 10 years. In each case, they started as a free service. That is, they offered free listings for those that wanted a home exchange. We also offered almost free listings, charging $ 7 for a one year listing.
Over the past 10 years I have seen many new home exchange and vacation rental travel sites start, build their business then either sell their business or just abandon it. In fact, since 2000 I have only seen one home exchange service that started with free listings survive after starting to charge. Why?
Offering free listings is often the best way for new websites to start up. It may take upwards to a year for a new site to get on search engines. Often the owners of these free sites pay to advertise to get noticed. After the intial investment in a website, marketing and assorted other costs many of these free
sites, after spending thousands, start to charge a fee. This may happen from 1 to 4 years after they start accepting listings.
From my own personal experience from offering free sites, along with the input of many owners of home exchange sites, I noted many reasons for this lack of success.
Scams - Yes there are scams involving home exchangers.
Scammers try to convince a home exchange owner to rent. In the summer/early fall 2008 clubs based in the UK and California have reported some of their members have been scammed out of thousands of dollars.
The scam is set up in many ways. The most frequent (often used in the vacation rental industry)
1. The home exchange lister receives a contact from the scammer asking if the exchanger would rent rather than exchange. The home owner is provided with a number of reasons why the scammer wants to rent. Often, a large amount of money is offered. If the home exchanger is agreeable to renting their home for a few days they are asked for their full name, address details and asking price for the rental. In a few days, the check, money order or bank draft arrives. Regardless of the asking price the check shows an amount that exceeds the asking price, often by more than a thousand dollars. The scammer, posing as a renter asks the owner to cash the check and wire the overpayment back. Never wire money to someone that you do not know. In a week to ten days the bank will notify you the check is fake. The bank will go after you for the full ammount of the check plus service charges. The money you sent by wire is gone.
The second scenerio has a scammer create a phony ad for a home exchange listing, often for popular destinations such as New York and London. The listing is often copied from existing ads on other websites. Even photos are copied. This same approach is frequent in the vacation rental industry and many free sites are a haven for scammers.
When the scammer is contacted by an unsuspecting home exchanger they indicate their property is unavailable for a home exchange but they can offer it as a vacation rental, often at a bargain price. The home exchanger that agrees to the rental may be sent official looking documents to sign and return by email. The scammer wants the potential renter to wire money for the rental or deposit. Once the money is wired it is gone. Never wire money to someone you don't know. The property either doesn't exist or is occupied by someone who is completely unaware of the scam and is surprised when someone knocks on their door saying they rented the home. The home was never for rent. The scammer posed as the fake owner.
Scammers love free sites because they can set up a listing without leaving clues to their identities. They use fake names, listings and change their email addresses frequently.
In September 2008 a Vancouver radio station CISL announced the results of recent research on the Vancouver vacation rentals offered on a popular worldwide free listing site. Over 60% of ads were fake.
With scams now starting to appear in the home exchange industry, why risk becoming a victim. Be caustious with sites offering free listings.
Home Exchange
1. You do the math.
A site has 10, 000 members and advertises that their listing fee is $50 a year. This is a half million a year.... Goodbye day job..
The reality is that many of these listings may not have paid or got their listing at a reduced rate. There are larger clubs that will negotiate a listing fee, others that say one thing on their website, as an example $75 for a one year listing but offer $29 to $49 yearly memberships through their newsletters.
Further, some larger clubs have bought out smaller clubs at a dollar a listing, thus creating the illusion that their membership was created through expensive prices.
One larger club even offered free listings to anyone living in Hawaii that saw their ad in a local newspaper.
Don't get fooled by the math. It isn't as it seems.
2. Quality I have taken the opportunity to put my own listing on many new clubs. Why? I own other clubs. The reasons are three fold. It gives me a better idea how to improve my own club, I see how other clubs serve their clients and as I am genuinely looking for my own exchange, it provides me with more opportunity.
Even though I am genuinely looking for an exchange I have never had an offer from any of my ads on free clubs. After the club started charging, I didn't choose to pay but my listing wasn't taken off. It stayed on the site. In some cases my contact info still came back to me, I tried the contact myself. On other clubs, I tried the contact. I didn't receive any response, but my listing was still displayed. Why? To create an illusion that the club had more listings than they really have. They remove my listing email contact but left my listing on.
The truth is that there are several people listed on free sites that genuinely are looking for exchanges. There are also many that are listing their home as a lark or worse.
Some listing members really do not want to make a commitment to an exchange, they are just interested in seeing who answers the listings.
Some listers are "hit and run" listers. They list their hom and leave to go on to other clubs. These people are hoping to get an exchange but don't make an effort to try contacting others. They sit back and wait after listing on every free service available.
There are also others lurking on free sites that aren't looking for exchanges. Several years ago while offering our own free listings, we received an email.
It was an apology. The person who wrote us went on to explain that she and several of her college classmates were doing a marketing assignment. Their assigmnment was to determine what kinds of people answered home exchange ads. She went on to mention that she and others in her group made up listings, she listed a Hawaii home, while some of her classmates made up and published listings on our site from Italy and New York.
She thought it was great fun. However, the reason for the apology was because of some of her immature classmates. They received replies, answered them as if they were a real destination and even lead people on suggesting travel dates. The worst part was that one family went ahead and purchased air tickets.
That's when she had the courage to email us. The listings were removed.
Then there are scammers.
They register a phony home exchange listing. Free sites attract scammers. Some clubs have reported a scammer registered a fake home exchange offer from New York. When their members contacted the New York home exchange listing the message received was they only offer a rental. The scammer asked the home exchange members that agreed to their rental to wire money by Western Union or other wire transfer service. The money was lost, the rental did not exisit. Never wire money to someone you do not know. This is a scam.
A second scam to be aware is someone contacts your home exchange offer and asks if they can rent your house for a few days. If you agree they will ask for your name address phone number and the asking price to rent your home. Often they are willing to pay $3000 to $5000 for a few days. They send you a check for $7000 . They ask you to cash the check and wire the money overpayment to them. In a week or two your bank will discover the check is fake. You will be resposnible to pay the bank back and you lose all the money you sent by wire. Never wire money in to someone you do not know. This is a scam.
Rention
Keeping members seems to be the biggest challenge for any home exchange club, free or established. Yes, each club has a core of loyal members that renew their memberships each year at a reduced rate. Equally there are newer members that don't travel every year, thus won't renew.
Free clubs have a terrible time retaining members once the start to charge. Often these members belong to numerous clubs and just won't renew with the newer club once a fee is established.
Often members that take free listings don't want to pay and they leave. The members that offer bait and switch just move on to other free services.
This leaves the club with the option of offering existing members a life time free membership just to keep the appearance of having more listers than they already have or deleting thousands of members.
In some cases these new clubs have invested 10's of thousands in marketing and counted on members paying once the started. Reality sets in when only 90 out of 10 000 pay to remain members.
Making money while offering free services
Some clubs make money while offering free services through advertisng Google ads and Adsence on their sites. They create large sites, not because of home exchange, but because of the money they are making through advertising. Home exchange becomes secondary.
Over the past 10 years I have seen many new home exchange and vacation rental travel sites start, build their business then either sell their business or just abandon it. In fact, since 2000 I have only seen one home exchange service that started with free listings survive after starting to charge. Why?
Offering free listings is often the best way for new websites to start up. It may take upwards to a year for a new site to get on search engines. Often the owners of these free sites pay to advertise to get noticed. After the intial investment in a website, marketing and assorted other costs many of these free
sites, after spending thousands, start to charge a fee. This may happen from 1 to 4 years after they start accepting listings.
From my own personal experience from offering free sites, along with the input of many owners of home exchange sites, I noted many reasons for this lack of success.
Scams - Yes there are scams involving home exchangers.
Scammers try to convince a home exchange owner to rent. In the summer/early fall 2008 clubs based in the UK and California have reported some of their members have been scammed out of thousands of dollars.
The scam is set up in many ways. The most frequent (often used in the vacation rental industry)
1. The home exchange lister receives a contact from the scammer asking if the exchanger would rent rather than exchange. The home owner is provided with a number of reasons why the scammer wants to rent. Often, a large amount of money is offered. If the home exchanger is agreeable to renting their home for a few days they are asked for their full name, address details and asking price for the rental. In a few days, the check, money order or bank draft arrives. Regardless of the asking price the check shows an amount that exceeds the asking price, often by more than a thousand dollars. The scammer, posing as a renter asks the owner to cash the check and wire the overpayment back. Never wire money to someone that you do not know. In a week to ten days the bank will notify you the check is fake. The bank will go after you for the full ammount of the check plus service charges. The money you sent by wire is gone.
The second scenerio has a scammer create a phony ad for a home exchange listing, often for popular destinations such as New York and London. The listing is often copied from existing ads on other websites. Even photos are copied. This same approach is frequent in the vacation rental industry and many free sites are a haven for scammers.
When the scammer is contacted by an unsuspecting home exchanger they indicate their property is unavailable for a home exchange but they can offer it as a vacation rental, often at a bargain price. The home exchanger that agrees to the rental may be sent official looking documents to sign and return by email. The scammer wants the potential renter to wire money for the rental or deposit. Once the money is wired it is gone. Never wire money to someone you don't know. The property either doesn't exist or is occupied by someone who is completely unaware of the scam and is surprised when someone knocks on their door saying they rented the home. The home was never for rent. The scammer posed as the fake owner.
Scammers love free sites because they can set up a listing without leaving clues to their identities. They use fake names, listings and change their email addresses frequently.
In September 2008 a Vancouver radio station CISL announced the results of recent research on the Vancouver vacation rentals offered on a popular worldwide free listing site. Over 60% of ads were fake.
With scams now starting to appear in the home exchange industry, why risk becoming a victim. Be caustious with sites offering free listings.
Home Exchange
1. You do the math.
A site has 10, 000 members and advertises that their listing fee is $50 a year. This is a half million a year.... Goodbye day job..
The reality is that many of these listings may not have paid or got their listing at a reduced rate. There are larger clubs that will negotiate a listing fee, others that say one thing on their website, as an example $75 for a one year listing but offer $29 to $49 yearly memberships through their newsletters.
Further, some larger clubs have bought out smaller clubs at a dollar a listing, thus creating the illusion that their membership was created through expensive prices.
One larger club even offered free listings to anyone living in Hawaii that saw their ad in a local newspaper.
Don't get fooled by the math. It isn't as it seems.
2. Quality I have taken the opportunity to put my own listing on many new clubs. Why? I own other clubs. The reasons are three fold. It gives me a better idea how to improve my own club, I see how other clubs serve their clients and as I am genuinely looking for my own exchange, it provides me with more opportunity.
Even though I am genuinely looking for an exchange I have never had an offer from any of my ads on free clubs. After the club started charging, I didn't choose to pay but my listing wasn't taken off. It stayed on the site. In some cases my contact info still came back to me, I tried the contact myself. On other clubs, I tried the contact. I didn't receive any response, but my listing was still displayed. Why? To create an illusion that the club had more listings than they really have. They remove my listing email contact but left my listing on.
The truth is that there are several people listed on free sites that genuinely are looking for exchanges. There are also many that are listing their home as a lark or worse.
Some listing members really do not want to make a commitment to an exchange, they are just interested in seeing who answers the listings.
Some listers are "hit and run" listers. They list their hom and leave to go on to other clubs. These people are hoping to get an exchange but don't make an effort to try contacting others. They sit back and wait after listing on every free service available.
There are also others lurking on free sites that aren't looking for exchanges. Several years ago while offering our own free listings, we received an email.
It was an apology. The person who wrote us went on to explain that she and several of her college classmates were doing a marketing assignment. Their assigmnment was to determine what kinds of people answered home exchange ads. She went on to mention that she and others in her group made up listings, she listed a Hawaii home, while some of her classmates made up and published listings on our site from Italy and New York.
She thought it was great fun. However, the reason for the apology was because of some of her immature classmates. They received replies, answered them as if they were a real destination and even lead people on suggesting travel dates. The worst part was that one family went ahead and purchased air tickets.
That's when she had the courage to email us. The listings were removed.
Then there are scammers.
They register a phony home exchange listing. Free sites attract scammers. Some clubs have reported a scammer registered a fake home exchange offer from New York. When their members contacted the New York home exchange listing the message received was they only offer a rental. The scammer asked the home exchange members that agreed to their rental to wire money by Western Union or other wire transfer service. The money was lost, the rental did not exisit. Never wire money to someone you do not know. This is a scam.
A second scam to be aware is someone contacts your home exchange offer and asks if they can rent your house for a few days. If you agree they will ask for your name address phone number and the asking price to rent your home. Often they are willing to pay $3000 to $5000 for a few days. They send you a check for $7000 . They ask you to cash the check and wire the money overpayment to them. In a week or two your bank will discover the check is fake. You will be resposnible to pay the bank back and you lose all the money you sent by wire. Never wire money in to someone you do not know. This is a scam.
Rention
Keeping members seems to be the biggest challenge for any home exchange club, free or established. Yes, each club has a core of loyal members that renew their memberships each year at a reduced rate. Equally there are newer members that don't travel every year, thus won't renew.
Free clubs have a terrible time retaining members once the start to charge. Often these members belong to numerous clubs and just won't renew with the newer club once a fee is established.
Often members that take free listings don't want to pay and they leave. The members that offer bait and switch just move on to other free services.
This leaves the club with the option of offering existing members a life time free membership just to keep the appearance of having more listers than they already have or deleting thousands of members.
In some cases these new clubs have invested 10's of thousands in marketing and counted on members paying once the started. Reality sets in when only 90 out of 10 000 pay to remain members.
Making money while offering free services
Some clubs make money while offering free services through advertisng Google ads and Adsence on their sites. They create large sites, not because of home exchange, but because of the money they are making through advertising. Home exchange becomes secondary.
New RSS: Add Your Own Feed
Why beong to an established club
Service. An established clubs staff are trained and have experience dealing with exchanges.
Many smaller size clubs focus on helping their members find exchanges.
Some samller clubs have banded to gether offer shared memberships. When you join one club, your listings as goes on these other clubs as a complimentary listing. Often these clubs offer listings and information in multiple languages.
Established clubs charge a nominal fee to belong. People that pay fees are serious about finding exchanges, saving hundreds, if not thousnads on hotel accommodations.
We invite you to visit three home exchange clubs that offer world wide listings.
Global Home Exchange and Vacation Rentals
it's Affordable to join and your home is advertised on 4 home swap sites worldwide.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byHome Exchange
Home exchange is a mutual exchange of homes or vacation homes. Your exchange partner may live in the same country or half way the world! Your homes may be similar in size and style or completely different-all that matters is that both parties are completely happy with the exchange arrangements both have agreed.Apart from the obvious saving on hotel bills, the greatest advantage of home exchange is the chance it gives you to experience a different lifestyle, often getting to know your exchange partners' friends and neighbors. However, arranging a successful home exchange does require careful planning. There is no way you can be guaranteed to find the perfect exchange partner, but there are several ways you can maximize your chances of arranging an enjoyable exchange.
Some members will be able to arrange an exchange in a short time with very little preparation, but most will find it wise to plan carefully, confirming decisions taken in writing to avoid any misunderstandings.
New Guestbook
Like this lens? Want to share your feedback, or just give a thumbs up? Be the first to submit a blurb!
by brighty1
My name is Dennis. I live on Vancouver Island Canada and own two home exchange and vacation rental companies.
We have completed 14 home e...
(more)Explore related pages
Inexpensive World Travel From Home To Home - As A Guest- Imagine You Are A Single Female Traveler. Imagine that you have never been to th...
Vacation home exchange- Home exchange began in Europe back in the 1950's when school teachers started ex...
Vacation home exchange- Please see Global Home Exchange at http://www.4homex.com for more vacatio...
Home Exchange e-guide- Suppose you could vacation in some far away country and pay absolutely nothing f...
Why Hotels are better for you than a Home Exchange ???
- 5 Reasons Why Hotels are Better Than a Home Exchange 5. Hotel: Your bed is made...
Finca Fantastica Travel- Finca Fantastica exists for independent travellers and has a colourful way to pl...
