Review date: April 2014
HomeExchangePlace.com
Year founded: unknown
Free
English only
860 listings
Listings by continent:
- Africa: 17
- Asia: 85
- Europe: 390
- Oceana: 111
- Americas: 257
Searching: There is no map based search. The search includes drop down menus from continent, country, state and city, with the ability to search at any of these levels of detail. In addition there is a blank to fill in for custom geography information. There is also a custom search option that allows you to find members who want to come to your location at the same levels of detail (continent, country, state and city), additional specifications as well a keyword.
Listings: The listings returned from the search have a decent overview of information but without some details that might be useful like how many people are in the swapping family. Listing details are nicely organized and includes a map.
This site offers the following variations on house swapping:
- simultaneous house swap – this is the traditional model where two parties swap houses for an agreed upon set of dates.
- hospitality exchange – this allows people with extra space in their house to host visitors in exchange for being hosted themselves at some other date.
Site Design: Clean design and usable interface.
Additional Features: Home Exchange Place includes contracts for members. They also have a basic email box for members to exchange information, although when contacting another member you are prompted to enter a phone number as one of the primary fields which seems premature for initial contact.