This is my experience exchanging my house in Switzerland with a strangers house in Canada!

Exchanging homes got me where I wanted to be with my family at an affordable price!

  In this brief report I’ll answer the following questions:  

1.)Why did I use an exchange service? 

2) What exchange service did I use? 

3.) How did I screen the people that I exchanged with? 

4.) What about my personal stuff? 

5.)Would I recommend doing a house exchange? 

6.) Were There Any Negatives?    

I got to enjoy and share this view for a few weeks at no cost!

 1.  Why Did I Use an Exchange Service?  

  In a few words it was affordable!  

  In 2008 I wanted to have a two-week vacation at a nice cottage in Northern Ontario Canada. Somewhere where I’d have room to host my parents, siblings and friends. The cost however was too high and so I started down the path of registering on a free site in order to exchange homes with someone in my target area.  

  I was confident that my home and location would be very attractive to potential exchangers and so I proceeded!  

 2.  What Exchange Service Did I Use?  

  After an on-line search I found a site called geenee.com which offered me a free way to list my home and receive inquiries. Here is my original listing which is still there! Click Here

  I haven’t inserted any dates for future availability but the service is still free for the time being! 

 

This is the free listing for my home. If you click the link above you can still see it!

 3. How Did I Screen The People That I Exchanged With?  

 After listing with geenee.com we immediately received 4 possible exchanges in our desired area and I honed in on one. Here it is: Click Here  

Geenee.com has an internal mail server and so we “chatted” a bit on there and then I suggested that we talk to each other over the phone. We did so and we both got a good impression of each other. The husband was a retired teacher and his wife was a retired nurse and this gave me a lot of confidence!  

  A few more “chats” on the phone and then we even agreed to make a private side deal to exchange vehicles as well. We drew up our own agreement and each agreed to pay the deductible if there was ever the need for an insurance claim. 

This is the listing for the home that we exchanged for. You can see the details by clicking on the link above.

 

 4. What About My Personal Stuff?  

  We cleared out some closets for them to use and put them and any really personal belongings that we didn’t want touched into a locked utility room. Easy peasy!  

  5. Would I Recommend Doing a House Exchange?  

  Yes. Overall it was a very positive experience and it suited my goal of getting me where I wanted at almost no cost. I was able to host my entire family, (with spouses and a few nieces and nephews we maxed out at about 15, 8 of which stayed over night!) and then we also had friends stay with us!  

  The home gave us access to the lake, some small boats and easy access to the Canadian wilderness! The couple that used our house were also very pleased with their vacation here in Switzerland and they even wanted to exchange homes again a few years later!  

We took canoes into the wilderness and slept in the wild for a few nights! 

With the house as a base we spent time on another lake in the woods!

Fishing, canoeing and camping with a luxury home base on a lake all for "free"!

 Were There Any Negatives?  

  For me not really! My wife @lellabird60 is a perfectionist and so she wanted our home to be perfectly ready for them! For her that meant painting a few walls and doing a REALLY thorough cleaning! Of course we emptied out the fridge and gave them instructions about where to do grocery shopping and how to use the washer and dryer etc..   

  When we got to the house that we exchanged for we didn’t find the same level of detailed cleaning that we had done, the fridge hadn’t been emptied and neither had the garbage cans! This gave us several hours of work on our end and was really the only negative.    

Final Thoughts

We are still listed on the site and we get requests from all over the world. For example: South Africa, Sweden, United States, Canada and all over Europe! It is only because of circumstances that we haven't done it again.

What do You Think?

• Would you change your house with someone?
• Do you have any questions?

I hope that you enjoyed reading about my experience exchanging homes!

Until next time,

@kus-knee (The Old Dog)

Remember, I reward the best comment(s) on each of my posts with my "The Old Dog is Throwing You a Bone" program! So please re-steem and follow so that we can spread the wealth!