Read the updated review from March 2015 here
Review date: April 2014
MyTwinPlace.com
Founded in 2012
Free to sign up, pay per swap in the future
Owned by two Spanish men committed to collaborative consumption
Languages: English, French, Spanish
3000 listings (estimated)
Listings by continent:
- Africa: 399 (likely includes the Middle East)
- Australia: 180
- North America, Central America & Carribean: 1106
- Spain: 940
- UK: 76
- France: 383
- South America: 288 (may include central america)
There are no overall counts of listings when the search result exceeds 500 so these numbers are estimates by counting up numbers on the map. See below on searching for why these are likely overestimates.
Searching: Searching is very slow. All searches start with a fill-in-the-blank for location. There is a map that then displays results but zooming in and out on the map doesn’t work well. Further, the results include not just listings in the location named but any listing nearby and possibly any listing that mentions the word you use to search on. For instance listings in Italy show up in a search for Spain, and when drilling in to those on the map the search changes to display everything in Italy. Searching on the word “Canada” resulted in some places in Tel Aviv in which I could find no mention of Canada.
Listings: The listings returned by searches include only a picture and one sentence description. There is not enough information to determine which ones are worth looking at in more detail. Within the individual listing detail the information is well organized but many properties have not yet filled in a complete profile. Some people seem to have listed vacation rentals even though the site is supposed to only be for swapping. The overview does quickly tell you who you are in discussions with.
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.
Site design: Overall very nice modern site design although slow response time.
Additional features: Active blog and other social media. They have an email service within the site for contacting other members. Also includes the ability to create wish lists, favorites and other convenience functions for finding and contacting other members.
We have a listing with other vacation rental sites. And I’ve noticed in the past 6 months or so that My Twin Space has been sending me information. So I finally opened the latest email to find I have a listing with My Twin Space. It appears from the wording that information has been copied over to create a listing. And My Twin Space keeps asking me to update my calendar for availability. Don’t appreciate a listing being created in my name without me knowing.
Wow, that’s definitely unacceptable. I know My Twin Space offers members the ability to copy over profiles from rental sites, but they obviously shouldn’t be doing it for people who don’t even join the network.