MS Holidays : House Exchanges

seven-day-weekend

I've posted some of this before but didn't get a lot of response. I really think it's a good idea.

We live in the mountains in southern Spain. My husband put our house on a House Exchange site.

We have had LOADS of reponses! We have already had one holiday (in Cordoba, about a four hour drive away; a wonderful city) and have another one in ten days time to a village just outside Granada (about two hours away).

We have also had offers that we are going to take up later in the year : one to Lourdes (France), THREE offers to Paris (we'll take one of them) and one to AUSTRALIA:eek: for 2008 or 2009.

(The Australia one will be expensive even with the free accomodation. We ahven't accepted it yet, but would love to. We are hoping we will be able to raise the money through the house sale of our little wreck next door once it's renovated. If we can't raise the money we can't go).

Anyway, back on topic : this is an excellent way to have a cheap break. I'm sure it ties in with the ethos of MSE.

Even if you live in a city, there may be British expats who want to exchange with you so that they can visit their family/friends.

Why not give it a go.

I have a link if anyone is intersted.

angel

I've often toyed with this idea but feel a bit nervous about doing it! What do you do with your private things or valueables? Isn't there a chance that you might get robbed?

Oh, and do you have the link?

seven-day-weekend

We have only done one at the moment. We put our private things (cheque books, bank statements etc) in our store room, but the people we exchanged with just walked out of the house and left it as it was! I think trust has to come into it a great deal.

Here's the link to the site: (I think our house will come up but you can navigate from there).

Hope this helps.

http://www.homeforexchange.com/property_detailed_view.php?propId=13365

angel

That's a great site, it's really caught my imagination now! I'm just wondering if my house is nice enough as some of the properties are very fancy.

jordylass

I thought this would be brought to the forefront a bit more after the movie holiday, it's something I always fancied doing, but my partner didn't like the idea of being in someone else's house, or them being in ours.
I also think you ned to have a place thats a little out of the ordinary, but maybe not....

Rachie_B

seven-day-weekend wrote:

We have only done one at the moment. We put our private things (cheque books, bank statements etc) in our store room, but the people we exchanged with just walked out of the house and left it as it was! I think trust has to come into it a great deal.

Here's the link to the site: (I think our house will come up but you can navigate from there).

Hope this helps.

http://www.homeforexchange.com/property_detailed_view.php?propId=13365

awww your house is lovely ! i did laugh at the description of the town and its car boot post office lol

hmmm im not sure we would have any takers of a 3 bed semi inbetween Swansea and Cardiff somehow lol

^!£$&

Thanks I've been looking into our 2007 holiday and this idea has never occured to me before.
We live very near to Stratford and Just an 1hr 20mins train journey to london so I'm sure some people would be interested in exchanging with us!
I will defintley be discussing this over dinner tonight!
Thanks again Op. p.s. your home is beautiful

seven-day-weekend

Thanks for the compliment, our home IS lovely and the scenery is even better, I can't believe it's ours sometimes.

We bought it in 2003 for £35,000 :eek: . This money came from the sale of an ex-Council prefab concrete bungalow that my husband inherited from his mother. You wouldn't think you could buy a house in a beautiful part of Spain for the same money as an unmortgageable property on a Council estate.

We spent about £10k renovating it.

The area is quirky and traditional, but the traditional skills are rapidly being lost as the young people are not learnin them.

Snowbrow, I'm sure you would get a house swop if you live in Stratford, loads of people would want to come.

Rachie, are you near Gower? People would want to come there I'm sure.

Rachie_B

seven-day-weekend wrote:

Rachie, are you near Gower? People would want to come there I'm sure.

sadly not
we are in Bridgend which is 13 miles from Cardiff in one direction, and 13 miles from swansea in the other lol

We got married in the Gower though

35k wow !

seven-day-weekend

Rachie_B wrote:

sadly not
we are in Bridgend which is 13 miles from Cardiff in one direction, and 13 miles from swansea in the other lol

We got married in the Gower though

35k wow ![/QUOTE]

Had we have bought it the year before it would have been about £15k, but in between us discovering the area and actually buying, the village was featured on 'A Place in The Sun' and all the prices went up.:rotfl: :rotfl:

Norma_Desmond

I've always hummed and haaed about house swapping; I just don't like the idea of total strangers in the house, AND I'm terrified that I would spill red wine on THEIR white carpets