Word: intervac
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Home exchanges are not new. At least one group, Intervac, has been facilitating such arrangements since 1953. But traffic online is particularly brisk these days, with several sites, including HomeExchange.com--which was founded in 1992 and, with some 28,000 listings, bills itself as the world's largest home-exchange club--reporting that membership has increased 30% or more this year. (See pictures of high-end homes that won't sell...
...will your swap leave you feeling so good about it? "It's very intimate being in someone else's home and life," says Lori Horne, who was an avid swapper before she bought the Intervac network 10 years ago. But intimacy can cut both ways. While your guests have their feet up on your ottoman, gazing at the photographs of your children, sipping coffee from your "World's Greatest Dad" mug, you may be frantically calling home to ask why their washing machine keeps spinning your clothes but never wets them. (They have thoughtfully left the instructions out, but they...
...both cases, it helps to deal through a reputable home-exchange network like HomeLink or Intervac, which are the largest and have been around for 40 years. There are also a growing number of newer exchange services cropping up on the Internet. For an annual fee, usually under $100, your home or apartment is listed by location with a brief description of its amenities and occupants. You can also note the cities or countries you would like to visit and the times of the year you would like...
...problems he has seen in the 10 years he has run HomeLink, Karl Costabel says, "most of them are trivial." To avoid worry, Costabel recommends locking up valuable or fragile items or taking them to a friend's house. "We have had no lawsuits in 10 years," says Intervac's Lori Horne, "and the few complaints we've got relate mostly to housekeeping differences. We never hear of theft or trashing...
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