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Greetings!
The ExchangeHomes Newsletter is published bi-monthly to
provide information on home exchange vacations for
current and recent members of ExchangeHomes and Newsletter subscribers.
Quick Links to the left to: Member Login, Browse the Listings, Sign Up, Read Our Blog, Go To Our Help Center.
Unsubscribe and Change Email
Address links are to be found at bottom of the page.
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Home Exchange Travel Insurance
Take Advantage of our great insurance deal!
As we recently published in the ExchangeHomesBlog and on the 'Resources' page of the ExchangeHomes.com website, we can now offer our members access to Travel Guard Insurance.
The policy was negotiated by CHECTravel and in order to participate, applicants must first become members of CHECTravel.
For complete details, please Click Here.
Also, while we're on the subject of insurance, don't forget that as part of your home exchange preparations, you MUST check your home owner's insurance and automobile insurance (if you will also be exchanging cars).
Check that your home owner's insurance covers guests and similarly that your automobile insurance covers a guest driving your car with your permission. If the automobile insurance requires an additional premium establish who will be paying and include this in the final agreement.
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Travelzoo
A recent affiliation!
We
realize only too well that in these challenging economic times, saving
money on vacation accommodation by participating in a home exchange is
only part of the deal.
That's why we've recently forged an affiliation with Travelzoo. Travelzoo is the most trusted
publisher of travel deals. Their team researches, evaluates and tests
thousands of deals to find those with true value. They recommend only
deals whose accuracy and availability they can confirm via their test booking center before it's added to the "Top 20" newsletter. With over 14 million subscribers, they are the largest publisher of travel deals on the Internet.
Join 14 million people and Sign Up Now for the free Travelzoo Top 20® list. There's nothing to buy!
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Take Advantage of our Multi-Club Memberships
Join 4 worldwide home exchange clubs for the price of one
Thanks to our cooperative arrangements, a one year multi-club ExchangeHomes.com listing can optionally be displayed on three other international home exchange clubs' websites working out out at about $11.25 per club a year, or about 93 cents a month per club. Multi home exchange club members are able to access and contact other members on all our partnership clubs' sites to inquire about and arrange a home exchange.
This provides you with access to listings on 4 home exchange sites for the price of one.
All our partner clubs' members will also be able to contact listings on ExchangeHomes.com as well as on their own home exchange sites. Contact us for full details afer joining or renewing.
The clubs we have cooperative arrangements with are:
 Global Home Exchange (Canada)- Echangeimmo (France)
- HomeForSwaps (UK)
 Or, if you're already a member, just log in to your Admin Area to Renew. Even if your listing has some time still to run, your renewal will be tacked on at the end with no time lost.
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Travelocity Home Exchange Survey
Request by Travelocity on Twitter
Travelocity has recently circulated details of a Home Exchange Survey. It's fairly brief and will only take a few minutes to complete. I shall be most interested to see the results when they become available.
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Is Home Exchange Right For You?
A question we've been asked to ask
 Before you join any Home Exchange organization and list your offer, have you stopped to rationalize with yourself what you are getting into? Is Home Exchange truly right for you?
All you need to do is ask yourself one simple question: How am I going to react to the prospect of strangers living in my home while I'm not there, sleeping in my bed, going through my things? If your immediate reaction is horror, then do the right thing and rent a vacation home. Home exchange is most likely not for you.
Far better to realize this at the onset rather than make an exchange arrangement and get cold feet at the last moment.
Remember though, if you follow all our directions and advice, the process of setting up your exchange vacation will in itself allow both parties to get to know each other well and you will be swapping with friends more than strangers.
ExchangeHomes.com provides a great deal of help:
If you genuinely like the idea of home exchanging, but are not 100% sure of your eleventh hour reaction, why not begin with a weekend exchange? This will allow you to 'test the waters' and it's likely that you will reamain relarively close to home.
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Pictures In Listings
A picture is worth a thousand words
 It's a great shame that what appears to be a really prime home exchange listing fails to include photographs. Often they will offer a note "photos will be emailed upon request". Not good enough!
Members and visitors to the web site expect instant gratification. We have software that tracks how the web site is used and over and over it tells us that listings without photographs go ignored.
People go so far as to perceive a listing without photographs as not being genuine. A serious offer requires illustration so that people viewing it can visualize themselves vacationing in your home.
Photographs grab attention and draw the viewer into your written descriptions. Today's digital cameras make them extremely easy to produce and upload. You should include pictures of living rooms, bedrooms, kitchen, back yard/garden (if applicable), your street, any important local attractions, and noteworthy views, and (if they are to be included in the exchange) your pets.
Always remember to tidy up first. It amazes me how many photographs online include scattered newspapers, shopping dumped on countertops and tables, piles of laundry, dishes waiting to be washed, even what appears to be an electric drill and trailing cord forgotten on the floor!
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Rentals on Home Exchange Sites
The ExchangeHomes.com perspective
Recently I've read a number of scathing blogs and articles from people new to the home exchange concept who object to companies that bloat their perceived volume of listings by publishing straight vacation rentals alongside their genuine home exchange offers.
 One writer complained that some listings she saw quite openly published rental costs and dates of availability, and she also concluded that any apparently genuine home exchange offered with "open to offers" dates and destinations was obviously nothing more than a rental masquerading as a home exchange.
ExchangeHomes.com never knowingly publishes any listing that doesn't genuinely offer home exchange as the first alternative. We do understand that some members offer a second home as their exchange property and we do allow them to indicate that it may be available for rent at other times. However, they are not allowed to publish prices within their listing, nor are they allowed to solicit renting the home via email contacts from the web site.
To expand upon the writer's comments about "open to offers", I think she is way off beam. ExchangeHomes.com has a great many members who have already completed many exchanges to places they initially wished to visit and now are happy to consider offers from anyone who may be interested in vacationing in their location.
Similarly, many of our retired members who are not constrained by family and work schedules feel equally free to be tempted with offers.
In fact, over the years, several posts on the ExchangeHomesBlog have featured reports we've received from members who spontaniously accepted an offer of exchange from somewhere they would never have otherwise considered.
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Contibutions
To This Newsletter and Our Blog
We always welcome contributions from both Members and subscribers to our two publications. How about putting together a report on your recent home exchange a piece of advice, or a list of tips? Anything you believe could be of benefit to your fellow home exchangers.
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This Newsletter is Also Online
For Anyone Unable To Read The Email Format
If you are unable to read this Newsletter in its email format, for the next 30 days you will be able to click on the link provided at the top of the page and read an online version.
After 30 days it will be archived along with all previous Newsletters. To access our Newsletter Archive Click Here
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ExchangeHomes.com is a home exchange company that's been continually in business since 1986. This newsletter is published bi-monthly. Links to update you email address, unsubscribe and forward this issue to a friend can be found below.
Sincerely,
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Anne Pottinger
Editor
ExchangeHomes.com
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