Stay Now, Swap Later
Nicole Frank is one of the leading experts of the home exchange community. Nicole has been an avid home exchanger since childhood and has completed dozens exchanges around the world with her family. Nicole’s "Key to Home Exchange" appears weekly on RoofSwap.com with do’s and don’t regarding house swapping and tips and advice on a wide array of travel topics. Have a question for Nicole or want to share some insight of your own? Visit Member Forum section and post your comments and questions.
On RoofSwap's forum members are asking about non-simultaneous exchange:
"I got another request for nonsimultaneous exchange. Isn't that risky? What are the plus and minus? Thanks."
- JohnJuan, Mexico
Most of the time home exchangers stay in each other's homes. That's called simultaneous home exchange, or just "home exchange". Non-simultaneous home exchange means you make your home available to swappers either before or after you use their home. Non-simultaneous exchange is not the same as hospitality exchange. Each family has the use of the other family's entire home.
Non-simultaneous exchange is something I have done with excellent results since I began my home exchange travels at the age of eight. When I was a child my parents were able to make our apartment available to home exchangers any time the swappers requested, whether or not we had our vacation during the same period. That is because they had a country home within commuting distance of our full-time residence.
My family's vacations were timed to coincide with school holidays. But we often gave swappers the use of one of our homes while we stayed elsewhere. Then, when it was our turn to use our swap partners' residence, they made their home available to us.
Since I started to swap my own home as an adult in the 1990's I have never had the same luxury. Until now. As of last month we are fortunate to have both a main home and a weekend get-away. We have found that non-simultaneous exchange opens up a world of home swap possibilities.
You do not need to own two homes to be able to gain the flexibility of non-simultaneous exchange. There are many options (discussed in next week's column) for doing non-simultaneous swaps whether your residences number in the dozens, or if you have the standard one home.
See you next week for non-simultaneous swap options with Your Key to Home Exchange.
