Founded in 2016
Owned and run by Andrea Aguiar
$39/year if you pay upfront, $78 if you wait to pay until you find a swap
free trial until you find a swap
English, Spanish, French, Portuguese
2084 Listings (1,734 active listings)
BeLocal home exchange network focuses on home exchanges in Latin America. They are growing at an impressive rate. I counted active listings as those that have a picture of their home on the website because the network is free to join. You can read my interview with the founder here.
Searching: The search interface starts with location and can be filtered down by travel style, dates, and keywords. There is also a reverse search option to find people who want to visit your home town. The filter options are limited compared to other swap networks. And it’s not possible to limit to homes that will fit your family, or to swap families who will fit in your home. The search returns pictures of the homes but no details about them.
Listings: The listings contain all the basic information about the home and the swapper in a usable format. There’s an option to translate descriptions into another language. And listings include a map showing roughly where the home is located. Members can also indicate dates available for swapping.
This site offers the following variations on house swapping:
- simultaneous or non-simultaneous house swap – this is the traditional model where two parties swap houses for an agreed upon set of dates.
- rental listings – members who list their home for exchange can also list it for rent
Site Design: Overall the site is easy to use but a bit slow to respond.
Additional features: BeLocal offers an email system for contacting other members.
If you’re trying to figure out which one to join, check out my reviews of all the major home exchange networks.