Home exchange @ Home Base Holidays: Home Swappers Newsletter

Home Swappers Newsletter is published bi-monthly to provide information on home exchange holidays for current and recent members of Home Base Holidays, enquirers, Newsletter subscribers and journalists. If you do not want to receive further Newsletters please send us a message with 'Remove from mailing list' in the subject line plus your name in the message:

mailto:homeexchange@btinternet.com

Topics Covered:

1. Home Base Holidays Members Make News!
      (a) England to France Exchange (The Sunday Times)
      (b) Regular English Swaps (The Evening Standard)
2. Australian Exchange Stories Wanted
3. Exchange Requests
      (a) London for Vancouver
      (b) Derbyshire or London for Australia, France and Canada
4. 'Early Bird' Membership Discount Offers
      (a) New Members - 25% Discount
      (b) Renewing Members - 40% Discount
5. What's New at Home Base Holidays
      (a) Improved Searches and Links to Members' Sites
      (b) Membership Forms in Five Languages
      (c) Americans and Canadians in Demand!
6. Feedback from Members and Visitors
      (a) Sensitive Smokers
      (b) Swapping Cell Phones
      (c) Site Indexing System
      (d) 'Still Available' Exchange Offers
7. Home Swappers Archives
8. Newsletter Contributions
9. Subscriptions

We are always very pleased when members agree to take the time to discuss their home exchanges with journalists. Personal experience stories are the best way to get across the home swap concept to readers unfamiliar with the idea. This issue we would like to thank members Peter & Judy Keen - HE2957, Terry & Joan Hopton - HE3158, and Jack Collins - HE11830. Visitors: use the Detailed Search facility and enter the reference code in the User ID box to find and view these members' current exchange offers (link follows). Members: view full listings from your member area on the site.

"I couldn't recommend it more strongly," says Buckinghamshire businessman Peter Keen. "We stayed in their four-bedroom, three-bathroom holiday home above St-Tropez for a week and spent the next seven days in their main house at Albi, an hour from Toulouse. There was a fridge full of French food at each house. We got under the skin of how the locals lived and got invited for a meal by the best friend of the family."

Journalist Graham Norwood writes: "The Keen family spent £100 in communication and preparation, plus extra insurance. They saved about £3,200 on a comparable French villa for two-week rental at the height of the summer."

Home swaps within a country are common (particularly in large countries like the USA), but journalist, Jane Berry's, request for help in finding a suitable home swap story was very specific. Jane, who writes for the Homes & Property section of London's evening newspaper, The Evening Standard, wanted to show how members might swap a London home for a country home on a fairly regular basis, making such an arrangement almost like having a second home
(but much cheaper!). The following quote is from Jane's article (30 May 01):

"Racing fan Jack Collins lives in a one-bedroom flat in Winchmore Hill, London. Joan Hopton and her husband, Terry, own a house in Cheltenham and she's crazy about ballet. For the third year running, they're about to do a three-week home swap.

For Jack, 73, it's a treat to escape from London to 'a different atmosphere. It's very refreshing'. For Joan, a 45-year-old librarian, it's a chance to catch the Kirov and possibly Royal Ballet. Another advantage of staying at Jack's flat was that the couple could take their elderly dog, Rocky, who has now died. In fact, everything about the swap is ideal for both parties. Jack has a computer that Terry, a 52-year-old university lecturer, can use for his writing and the Winchmore Hill flat is close to shops and transport. 'It's like a second home,' says Joan, 'the more you go, the more familiar it gets.'

Jack feels the same about the house in Cheltenham: 'I don't like hotels, I much prefer a home. The atmosphere is much nicer.' And both parties know their properties are being well cared for. 'The Hoptons are very agreeable,' says Jack. 'They always leave me little presents, like a new saucepan, or things in the fridge.'

Unfortunately the on-line Homes & Property section of The Evening Standard doesn't include all articles published in the print edition so we can't give you a link to read the full article or see the great photos of Joan, Terry and Jack.

Australian freelance journalist, Paul Edwards, is currently researching an article on home exchange and is looking for both Australian members who have had exchanges and would be willing to talk to him about them and for members in other countries who have had exchanges to Australia. If you could help Paul please contact him at: mopobb@netspace.net.au

Occasionally members have trouble finding a suitable exchange (and, disappointingly, some members fail to reply to exchange requests). We are happy to give such members an extra 'plug' in the newsletter and urge both current members and subscribers to check out the following attractive offers:

Recent member, Balwant Singh, HE11828, would like to arrange an exchange to Vancouver. The Singhs' Victorian house in North London is only 15 minutes by Underground from Central London and would make a good base for members visiting the city. Although an exchange in September is their ideal (before Mrs Singh's maternity leave ends), if this is difficult, they are also open to offers later.

Jo Thornton, HE10784, whose apartment in a Victorian house is only five minutes from the centre of the lovely Georgian spa town of Buxton in the Peak National Park, now has an email address in her listing which she hopes will encourage more members to contact her with exchange offers. In addition, Jo now owns a two bedroom flat in Greenwich, London, and the flat is also available for exchange (take your pick!). Jo is particularly interested in exchanges to Australia (UK winter), France (summer) and Canada (any time).

The summer is a relatively quiet period with many members on holiday and not yet thinking ahead to exchanges later this year and next. It is however a very good time to join or renew membership as you not only have access to members' exchange offers for 2001 but can also view new offers for 2002 as they come in. It can take some time to find a suitable swap and, joining several months before the dates you want to exchange, gives you the best chances of finding the perfect exchange partners. To encourage summer joiners we have some great discount membership rate incentives:

Enter AUG in the promotional code box on the on-line membership form to join as an internet member at £28.50, a 25% discount on the standard rate of £38. Offer ends 31 July 2001. Please note: discounts can only be given when a valid code is entered in the code box before submitting a form.

If you do know your User ID and password but can't access the member area of the site it is likely that your membership expired more than a year ago. If this is the case you will need to re-join as a new member. You will still qualify for the 40% renewal discount as long as you send us a message to let us know as soon as you complete and submit a new membership form on-line.

A recent upgrade to our site makes browsing listings much easier. Now, when you visit the site either as a member or visitor you will see hyperlinks to continents, immediately below the main search box. Click on a continent, Europe for instance, and you will see a list of all countries where there are currently listings. When a new listing is released in a country where there were no previous listings, the new country is automatically added to the list under the right continent. When all listings have expired in a country, the country will no longer be shown in the list. Countries with the largest number of listings are further sub-divided by states (USA), counties (UK) and provinces (Canada). As member numbers grow in other countries these will also be sub-divided for easier browsing.

If you have ever done a search from a long drop down list of countries only to get zero results for a number of countries, you will know how frustrating such searches can be. Similarly, if you are only given the opportunity to click on a country name from a list of a few 'most popular' you can't easily determine the full range of listings or where located. The ability to quickly browse all countries with listings on our site should be particularly useful for visitors and for members in their initial searches.

It may seem a subtle difference but it is now much easier and quicker to move back and forth between listings you are viewing and between the pages of brief listings (10 per page). Want to refine your searches and limit the results to listings which fit certain criteria? Click the Refine Search or Detailed Search link to select how you want to limit your searches (remember that the less restrictions you make the more results you will get). As we have mentioned in previous newsletters, the Listings Posted function is ideal for quickly checking for listings since you last did a search:

http://www.homebase-hols.com/preview.shtml

Member Website Links: several members now have their own personal sites or have photos of their homes, families and area on a photo site. Members can now add a URL address in the new Link to Website box near the bottom of the form. This will enable other members to easily access additional information on an exchange offer. If you don't have a personal site you can also use the website box to enter a link to a local tourist information site or perhaps a map site to show your location.

Members: if you add a link to your form, delete the link in your description (if originally given there), and press Continue at the bottom of the form to save your changes. Then please check your listing and click on the link you have added to make sure it works.

We now have membership forms available in French, Spanish, German and Italian which are being linked to information in these languages on the site in the next couple of weeks. All agencies in our group, the First Home Exchange Alliance, have either recently linked to the new language forms, or will be doing so soon. We are already seeing an increase in both numbers and range of listings and this is bound to increase the easier we can make taking part for members whose first language is not English.

Home exchange agencies belonging to the First Home Exchange Alliance (FHEA) have worked together co-operatively for many years. This co-operation is for the benefit of all members, giving a greater range of exchange offers than is possible for a single company based in one country. But, as in any organisation, changes take place in the membership of the FHEA from time to time and we regret to report that one of our two American associate agencies (which we had introduced the home exchange concept to way back in the late 1980s) has recently left the group. For various reasons this agency had decided to set up a separate site and, invariably, having listings on two separate sites caused some logistical problems. This decision will not affect any current members whose listings will continue to be available to both groups of members until their expiry dates are reached over the next several months.

One of the problems we soon encountered when working with a second site involved confusion with user ID numbers which are automatically assigned to members when they join. During this transitional period a few Home Base Holidays members may receive offers and be given user ID numbers which they can't use to view listings on our site. These user IDs will begin with the letters 'VH' rather than 'HE'. If you should receive an exchange offer from a member quoting a VH number please contact us, giving the member's name and VH number. We will then find and pass on the information that will enable you to see the member's listing before responding to their exchange offer.

Losses fortunately bring with them other opportunities. The USA has a large population and a great proportion of citizens have internet access. This can cause difficulties in ensuring there is not an over balance of US listings which would make it likely that some American members would have difficulty arranging the international exchange they want. The gradual loss of the US agency's listings as memberships expire over the next few months means that, with this primary reduction being in North American listings, we are now in the happy position to directly (along with our colleagues in FHEA) offer new American and Canadian members a splendid opportunity for exchanges with a better balance of listings from other countries. So, Americans, Canadians - and everyone else! - take advantage of our special membership discount offer (see 4a above) and join Home Base Holidays now for the best variety of exchange offers for the 2002 season.

As you see when browsing listings there are a number of ways members may put restrictions on their exchange offers in order to limit enquiries to those from the most likely compatible members. One such restriction is the non-smokers only tick box option. As more and more members, being non-smokers themselves, indicate they want to restrict an exchange to other non-smokers, so some of our poor smoking members are finding their choices for exchanges more and more limited! One such member contacted us some time ago with just this dilemma.

If you or a partner are smokers but are sensitive to other members' requests, it would be reasonable to contact members whose exchange offers really interest you even if they have indicated non-smokers only. If you are up front in admitting your habit when first suggesting an exchange and emphasise that you would respect their wishes and not smoke in the house, you may reach an agreement to smoke only outside the house that will enable you to arrange an exchange.

We haven't had any reports to date from members on mobile phone swaps and, although agreeing to pay mobile phone bills shouldn't be any different from agreeing to pay a home phone bill, do let us know if you have experience in including mobile phones as part of an exchange or if you can think of any drawbacks to doing so.

Listings on the website are available in geographical searches by continent, country, town, nearest city and state/county/province. Although listings will always appear on a search on their town name, if a member lives in a small town or village but also gives the name of the nearest large city, the listing will appear amongst the results for a search on the city name too.

It can, I know, be exasperating for a member who does live in a well known city, to find his listing further down the list than a small town some distance away! Many people will do a search on 'London' but probably few will search on 'Surbiton' although a home in Surbiton would make a good base for exchangers wanting to visit London. By not restricting the search results to the city name only we hope members who live in lesser known towns or areas have a better chance of having their listings seen, while those looking for a central city location will still check out the city based listings only.

There are a few results which seem at first totally inexplicable. One such I've seen is a Northern Ireland listing on a search on London. But, if you look at the listing, you can see that 'London' was picked up from Co. Londonderry in the state/county field. By and large searches work well but do please let us know if you see any strange, no logic, results when you search and we'll pass these on to our programmer.

Two long-time members, Veronica Bamber, HE7008, from Edinburgh, and Mark Mullins, HE2400, from London, recently suggested the similar idea of a late list or stop press list of members still looking for exchanges when the dates they want to exchange are drawing close. This is an excellent idea and we are working on it for the next phase in the development. We have considered various ways of drawing attention to an exchange offer - from email alerts when a new listing is added from the destination requested (could be a nuisance with too many non-relevant listings given in alerts), bulletin board (relies on members checking it often to be effective) or simply including all listings amongst the latest listings whenever any minor changes are made (distorts the new listings results while not necessarily effectively promoting the 'still looking' offers).

We are now looking into the idea of a separate 'Still Looking' search as a useful adjunct to searches by Listings Posted dates. We welcome your comments on this but, as ever, the best advice to all is to keep actively looking for exchange offers (both from recent members and those whose listings have been in circulation for some time), be as open as you can be on destinations and dates, and contact members directly with your offer. If all members waited to be contacted, everyone would end up 'still looking' indefinitely!

If you have had a home exchange we would be pleased to receive your contributions for the Newsletter - short articles about your exchange experiences and tips for those new to the idea of swapping homes. Members' articles include HE reference numbers to give added publicity for their exchange offers. We also welcome questions from all considering home exchange for the first time.

We are very happy for you to forward Home Swappers to friends and colleagues who may be interested in home exchange but the newsletter must be sent in full. All Home Swappers content is copyright and cannot be used in any form without written permission from Home Base Holidays.

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HOME BASE HOLIDAYS, 7 Park Ave, London N13 5PG, England
tel: +44(0)20 8886 8752
mailto:homeexchange@btinternet.com
http://www.homebase-hols.com
1985-2001: 16th year providing a home exchange holiday service worldwide