It was back in 2016 when writer Fiona McPhillips and her family embarked upon their first home swap. They were looking for something new.
“The kids were getting a bit older, and we’d done the French camping holidays,” she says. It was the thoughts of getting a “way better holiday than you would otherwise by doing a house swap” that attracted them.
The swap, “an amazing house on the French Riviera with a swimming pool”, was exactly what they were looking for.
But it came with something extra – due to a clash of dates, McPhillips ended up spending two nights with the family who owned the property at the start of the trip. Not the perfect start, perhaps, to the home-swapping experience.
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‘There are times I regret having kids. They’re adults, and it’s now that I’m regretting it, which seems strange’
“It was intimidating,” laughs McPhillips, as it felt a bit like they were being screened, “but it did work out well in the end”.
“Overall, it was a really great first experience,” she says.
Indeed that slightly inauspicious start did not put McPhillips off, and the family has since embarked upon a further seven swaps, to places as far afield as California, New York, Columbia and Japan.
“They’ve all been great, but the best experience was probably Columbia,” she says.
Home exchange
McPhillips is not the only advocate of home swapping. For more than seven decades now, it has been a tried and tested way of saving money while looking for a bit of la dolce vita, by swapping your home for someone else’s – preferably nicer than yours, and somewhere hot, sunny and close to a beach, or in a city of your choice.
One of the original home exchange services, Intervac, was founded in 1953 by a group of teachers who were looking to travel. Back in the day, participants received a catalogue of houses and had to painstakingly write to people requesting an exchange, and wait to hear back from them.
These days, it’s all done online, and with the advent of Zoom calls and WhatsApp, it’s easier than ever before to chat with the people who are going to be living in your home.
Typically, you’ll pay an annual subscription to a website, which gives you access to thousands of other people’s homes – Intervac for example, charges €85 a year/€150 for two, while HomeExchange.com, which says it has some 150,000 homes listed, costs $220 (€202) a year.
The concept of swapping has also moved on; these days many websites – such as Homeexchange – work on a points basis, so you typically don’t organise a straight swap. Rather, you earn points when you let someone use your house, and these can then be used towards another property. For example, a two-bed apartment in Paris’s 19th arrondissement “costs” 89 points a night. If you do a reciprocal match – ie, swap at the same time – you won’t need so-called guest points.
And there are also sites specifically targeting those with holiday homes or investment properties they don’t want to rent out.
Thirdhome.com for example, is a self-proclaimed “Airbnb for millionaires”.
Not just anyone can join the platform; you’ll need a home worth above $500,000, (€460,000) and it must be your second – or third – home.
“The beauty of it is, is that it’s always vacation homes,” says Dubliner Michelle Meehan, client growth manager with the company, based in Marbella, Spain, adding that this makes swaps much easier to arrange.
The site operates indirect swaps, and members are asked to commit to making their home available for at least two weeks in the year. They are assigned a “key” value when they join. So, a house worth between $500,000-$1 million will get one key for example, while a house valued at more than $4.5 million will get five keys.
Using your key, you can then check availability among other member properties in this price range, but you’re not restricted to just these. By increasing the availability of your property, you can earn more keys – thus earning the right to book fancier properties.
Meehan cites one member with a property in Dublin, who used it to book a week at the St Regis in New York over Christmas – something which had a value in excess of $40,000.
In Ireland, Meehan says they have members with “all types of properties”, including everything from houses near the golf course in Lahinch, to a house in Donegal “that looks like it belongs in Malibu”, to a traditional cottage in Doolin and a former winner of Home of the Year near Kilkee on the Wild Atlantic Way.
Typically, Irish members look to swap their holiday homes for a villa in France, Italy, Spain or Portugal.
Membership is complimentary for the first year, and then an annual fee of $295 applies. You must also pay a fee – ranging from $495 to $1,395 a week per swap – depending on the value of the property and the time of the year. “On average it’s about $695/$795,” says Meehan.
But if going down the more traditional route, is it easy to find a match? Or do you swipe right only for your dream exchange to swipe left?
Finding someone who wants to come to Ireland hasn’t been an issue thus far for McPhillips.
“It’s never hard to find people who want to come to Dublin,” she says, adding that this is probably in part due to a lack of accommodation, and the cost – a family room in a hotel in the capital starts at about €300 a night this summer.
McPhillips has a lot to offer putative swappers. A keen interiors aficionado – she is the author of Make the Home you Love: The Complete Guide to Home Design, Renovation and Extensions in Ireland, as well as her latest thriller, When We Were Silent– her tastefully decorated home is near the sea on the northside of Dublin.
However, if your home is less than magazine-ready, you shouldn’t be put off.
“I’m amazed [at] the amount of people who want to come to Dublin,” she says. “Absolutely any accommodation would be really sought after.”
The challenge however – even if you’re not looking for a direct swap – can be finding a home in your desired location, for your desired dates.
While it should prove easy enough to find a property in France or Spain, says McPhillips, as house swapping is “very common there”, particularly if you’re flexible on the location, further afield can prove more difficult.
“You’re basically cold calling people,” says McPhillips of the search for a home. “You can expect to face a huge amount of rejection. The year we went to San Francisco I sent about 75 messages.”
Similarly, organising a trip to New York proved to be a job in itself.
“Most New Yorkers just go away for a weekend, as they don’t have many holidays,” she says, but adds that she did find somewhere eventually.
Typically, McPhillips would start planning a swap a year in advance, although a trip to Budapest for Easter happened on the hop when she was contacted by someone looking to swap.
“Sometimes an opportunity presents itself,” she says.
But home swaps don’t always have to be to some exotic location. Earlier this year, Sinéad Canney set up Letswap.ie, to get people moving around the island of Ireland.
Canney got the idea from her own struggles of finding suitable – and cost-effective – accommodation for herself, three children, a granny and a dog.
“It’s very hard to find self-catering with a dog,” she says.
The site costs €149 for a year of unlimited swapping, which is co-ordinated through a secure platform. This means that only members can see your home. A feature of it is Zoom “meet the swapper” parties, where “you get to see the people behind the profiles” and learn about their homes.
“You can find out about the local treasures,” she says, referring to a recent evening where a Tipperary-based member regaled attendees with tales of her tiny local pub, which is like “being in a Fáilte Ireland ad”.
The swaps don’t have to happen at the same time, “it’s up to the swappers to organise it themselves”, she says, and it has already become popular with families and retirees, as well as teachers who look to take advantage of their long summer holidays.
Canney has already done two swaps with her family, both to Galway.
“It’s a great way to see Ireland without it costing a fortune,” she says.
The most common question McPhillips is asked about home swapping is how she feels about letting people into her home. But “by far the biggest worry is that the kids will break something in the other house,” she says.
The amount of preparation required can also put people off.
Next up for her family is a return to California. They are heading off in the summer school holidays, and already, she’s starting to think about getting her house ready.
“It’s in the back of my mind now; the bathroom needs to be painted, the kitchen drawers have to be emptied. It’s a lot of work whichever way you look at it,” says McPhillips.
Canney urges people not to be put off by the amount of preparation that needs to be done.
“You don’t have to clear out your whole house,” she says, adding that she has drawn up a two-day prep plan to get your house ready for a swap.
So, what’s stopping you?
Get swapping: Five to try
1: Try the dolce vita in Fasano, Italy
2: Stay local with a holiday in Donegal
3: Get a taste of the Greek islands on Spetses
4: Enjoy the après-ski in Méribel, France
5: Live la vida loca in Mexico
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