GO HOME SWAP:Experiencing a country as the locals do and having the comfort of your own home are just some benefits of house exchanges, writes CATHY CURRAN
IN THE FILM The HolidayKate Winslet swaps her cute bijoux cottage in the leafy English countryside with a swanky LA condo owned by Cameron Diaz: two lovelorn women from opposite sides of the Atlantic who temporarily exchange homes and end up romantically entwined with Jude Law and Jack Black.
Well I was not lovelorn and I sadly didn’t bump into Jude Law but I did do a house swap in Seville.
I was inspired by friends who had swapped their home in West Cork with a house in San Francisco. They had found it at intervac.com. I looked into this site which has houses for exchange all over the world/ It has an Irish representative, Frank Kelly, who can advise on proposed exchanges. There is a one off charge of €100 to join, which I did, and you then can set up your house details.
However the choice was somewhat limited and so I tried homeexchange.com which has a vast range of properties. The membership can be paid in installments at $9.95 (€6.90) a month for a year or $15.95 (€11) for a three-month subscription.
You post details of your home and then put up as many photos of your home and surrounding areas as you like. You can say whether you prefer smoking or non smoking, animals or not, children or not and whether you are willing to also swap your car. Once you join you are also rated on how many exchanges you have done so the more exchanges you have, the more credibility you gain.
I am lucky to live in the centre of Dublin, close to Ballsbridge, Baggot Street and the Grand Canal area, so it is a pretty good location for anyone visiting the city. The two-bed townhouse has a garden, brilliantly landscaped by my talented mother. I did a good clean before my guest’s arrival.
I started my search, knowing I wanted to stay in Europe and ideally Spain as I speak the language and was experiencing withdrawal symptoms.
I realised that I had not given myself a lot of time, starting my search in May for a July trip was too tight. I was ideally looking to exchange with someone on the coast, Marbella or Nerja were my preferred destinations, but they were all taken as everyone wants to be by the sea in summer.
I was receiving requests for my house from mostly inland parts of Spain, Italy and France. In the end, after copious searches, emails and rejections, I chose to swap with a family in Seville. The family had no English so my slightly rusty Spanish was tested to the limits with a series of five Skype sessions, 35 emails and five phone calls.
As they were bringing a friend for one of their two daughters, my two-bedroom house was missing a bed so I bought a blow-up bed in Tesco for the princely sum of €7. The bed did slightly resemble a beach Lilo but was perfectly acceptable for a nine-year-old girl and her efficient father had sent me her height in advance!
I was lucky enough to meet my fellow exchangers in person, in Seville airport as we arrived from London and they were about to fly to Dublin. They were charming and friendly as I has expected although I did feel like I was signing my life and home away when Alberto produced a series of documents for me to sign. Car and house keys were exchanged, insurance documents signed, kisses given and received and we were off.
The house was very much as shown on the website so there were no shocks although it was a little tired looking in places.
It was in a quiet area of Tomares, a suburb about 20 minutes from the city of Seville, of white terraced houses with small gardens and a shared swimming pool.
There was one main bedroom and two children’s rooms, so not ideal for me and my sister or if you were travelling as a group of single people.
Seville is a beautiful city but extremely hot in July, at 40 degrees with no sea breeze. As a result we had the air conditioning on in the house almost permanently, not good for your health or their electricity bill.
I was only able to do 10 minute blasts of sunbathing at a time before I would retire to the cool comfort of the sitting room to read my book.
The kitchen was well equipped although we mainly ate out because Seville is cheaper than many other Spanish cities. There was no kettle and the 25-year-old washing machine took five hours to wash a cycle. The shower attachment continued to fall on my head too.
I texted my exchangers to check that all was okay. As I sat sweating in 40 degrees, I got a text saying, yes it’s 15 degrees and perfect.
For me the real advantage of exchanges is that you feel more like a native, it feels a lot less clinical than staying in a minimalist hotel room.
We went into Seville many times and mostly got taxis as we wanted to have a drink and there were no buses: €15 each way was another pitfall I would avoid again by ensuring I was nearer the city. There were nice restaurants and tapas bars near the house which were lovely.
Seville is also surrounded by stunning towns: we went by train one day to visit Jerez de la Frontera, the home of sherry, about an hour from Seville, and did a tour of the Tio Pepe estate.
I returned to Dublin to find my house well looked after and everything clean.
As it was my first home exchange, I did breathe a sigh of relief that my house was still standing and that they hadn’t broken appliances. I would highly recommend home exchanging.
Now I am thinking of Florida maybe in January . . .
Home exchange tips
- Homeexchange.com estimates that there are more than 250,000 successful home exchanges every year. Its has more than 40,000 listings in 143 countries. Other companies include Intervac (intervac.co.uk)
- Most exchangers give details on the countries they would like to visit so, to save time, it helps to do a reverse search on countries you want to visit and those who wish to visit Ireland.
- Give yourself plenty of time to research – I was under pressure to take certain dates from work and didn’t give myself enough time to find my dream destination. Popular places by the sea will be snapped up first.
- If you plan to exchange cars, call your insurer. I paid €50 to cover Alberto on my Toyota Corolla for 10 days.
- Lock up valuables and private documents. The family in Seville actually locked one of their rooms.
- I sent a list of information such as alarm settings, names and numbers of friends and neighbours, police and hospital.
- If you feel happier having things in writing, the site provides contract templates.
