From: Robert. Subject: Apartment in Amsterdam - Your Craigslist ad.
From: Ada. Subject: My New York City apartment for your Amsterdam apartment
On a trip down memory lane, it’s these email threads—and many more—that Rachel Cho, a New York City–based florist, finds when reminiscing about her house swapping adventure nearly 15 years earlier.
The year was 2009 and Cho was in her late 20s, craving a change of pace after a busy few months at work. “For florists, January and August is downtime, and I decided I needed to unplug.” She remembered a particular movie she’d seen a few years back in which a convincing Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet play two lovesick strangers who decide to swap houses over a few weeks in December. “I thought, Maybe that’s a real thing,” Cho recalls. “So I searched on Craigslist and found all of these ads for house swapping. I realized people actually do this, so I posted an ad myself.”
As the flower capital of the world, Cho was keen to spend time in Amsterdam to both reset and find inspiration. Luckily, a Dutch man equally eager to immerse himself in the Big Apple found her Craigslist ad, reached out, and the timing of the exchange worked perfectly for both. “He had a beautiful apartment,” Cho says. “I spoke with him on the phone and it seemed like a good fit.” They arranged key swaps, introduced each other to a few contacts in their respective cities, and within a few weeks Cho was on a flight to spend the next month in Amsterdam. “You really have to trust that person and trust your instincts; had I seen any red flags, I would’ve listened to that too,” she says.
The rise of house swapping
Nearly 15 years after Cho briefly relocated to Amsterdam, house swapping appears more popular than ever. According to Jessica Poillucci, a PR manager for home-swapping platform HomeExchange, US subscribers are up 32% from the start of the year. Globally, subscribers are up 45%. “Last year, we hit a lot of record numbers, and it’s been pretty consistent growth since then,” Poillucci adds. “Once travel was possible again after the pandemic, it was a prime time for something like a house swap. People were working from home and traveling and needed space to work.”
These are not Airbnbs or investment properties. Home swappers don’t make money from letting strangers into their homes nor do they pay others to stay in theirs. When organized the way Cho did through websites like Craigslist or Facebook Groups, the set up is a strict even exchange—your house for mine. However, recent years have seen a growing number of companies, like HomeExchange, that exist to formalize the home swapping process for a small fee.
Membership requirements differ between sites, but once approved most operate like a peer-to-peer marketplace. Users individually contact each other to set up exchanges and book swaps and are in full control over who they choose to let into their spaces. At times, the exchanges are reciprocal, that is, members swap with each other at the same time. Many platforms, however, also offer a for-credit exchange option. In this case, members can open up their homes to other people on the platform—perhaps they’re away on business or visiting family—and earn credits towards nights at another member’s property later.
Sometimes house swapping is just like The Holiday
During the last week of August this year, Mallory Wakerman, an interior designer and content creator, woke up in New York City. Her day was routine: She made breakfast, opened her computer, and started taking Zoom calls. After a few hours, she took a lunch break and went on a jog through Central Park. Four hours ahead of Los Angeles, it was right around the time Arielle Smith, a business strategist for a digital streaming and entertainment company, was waking up in Wakerman’s bed in California. “I lived in her space as if it was my own,” Smith says. “I would get up, go to the gym in her building, make coffee and get ready, then take the elevator down to the building’s garage where she left me her parking space.”
The two women met on Kindred, a members-only home-swapping platform. Smith was looking to spend a few weeks in the City of Angels while Wakerman and her boyfriend were hungry for a Manhattan escape. “We found her on the website and sent her a video message,” Wakerman says. “We ended up hoping on a Zoom call and we had so many things in common. It didn’t feel like swapping with a stranger, I was like, ‘Oh, this girl could be my friend.’” Both agree that it was this easy familiarity that made house swapping not only tolerable, but enjoyable. “When Mallory and I connected, it was really seamless and we were both eager to try,” Smith adds.
For Wakerman and Smith, the benefit of using a third-party platform like Kindred, HomeExchange, or other similar services is the added security that a swapper is a verified person, help from the company in the case of an emergency, and (usually) some form of damage insurance. “I wouldn’t do it if there wasn’t a fee,” Betsy Hicks-Russ, a TikToker who has done over 50 home swaps, tells AD. “You’re gonna get a different quality of person because you’re gonna get somebody who’s willing to pay and invest some money.” Even so, these prices are often significantly lower than traditional travel accommodations.
Smith paid $500 to stay for 10 nights in Los Angeles, while Wakerman paid $500 for the same amount of time at Smith’s place in New York. For both, affordability was a major factor in choosing to do a home exchange over a hotel or Airbnb. “Doing this gave us the budget to really enjoy the city. We could go to a jazz show or buy nice Broadway tickets,” Wakerman says. “You actually have the money to do the things you want to do once you get to the place you’re visiting; you’re not spending it all on a place to rest your head.”
Two homes for the price of one
It only took one night for Betsy Hicks-Russ, the woman who has done more than 50 home exchanges, to convince her husband that this was the future of travel for their family. “He struggled with the idea of someone sleeping in our bed; I think that’s what freaks people out the most,” she says. But after one snooze at their swap’s house, he was sold. They’ve since done dozens of exchanges, both locally and internationally.
Some of their trips are one and done, but they’ve become such routine swappers that they have a few families they do regular exchanges with. “We live more in the country near the Canadian border on a lake, and we did an exchange with a family who live on the 31st floor of a high rise in downtown Vancouver,” Hicks says. It went so smoothly that the families now swap homes about three times a year. “It feels like we have a vacation home in the city, and they have a holiday house in nature,” Hicks adds.
It’s an experience that Justine Palefsky, cofounder of house swapping platform Kindred, shares. While living in San Francisco, she started switching homes informally with a college classmate who lived in Lake Tahoe. “To live like I had second homes and not have to pay for [them], it was a huge lightbulb moment for me,” she says. Maria Granados, the owner of the Vancouver unit, agrees that it’s like a free second property.
Both Hicks and Granados love their homes, but frequently crave what the others’ offers. “That’s why it’s a really good trade,” Hicks says, bringing up another benefit many of the people interviewed for this story spoke to: In the house swapping community, value is in the eye beholder.
As far as exchanges go, there’s no difference between a 300-square-foot studio in Manhattan and a 10,000-square-foot estate in California. “We once swapped with a single man whose son was studying here in Canada,” Granados explains. In return, she and her family got to stay in an expansive oceanfront condo in Miami. “We couldn’t have afforded that home on Airbnb.” In another instance, the Granados family ended up in a “literal mansion” on the top of the mountains in Calgary. “It’s really nice to get that through a home exchange,” she says.
The role of design in house swapping
When Wakerman and Smith were planning their New York City and Los Angeles home exchange, design played a notable role in their collective decision. “I think my apartment is really cute,” Smith says. “It’s very midcentury and I’ve put a lot of thought into it.” It’s a quality that Wakerman noticed immediately when browsing for potential swappers. “Her apartment looked really nice and it was in a great location; that’s why we decided to reach out,” Wakerman adds.
Good design, though not required for a home exchange, plays an increasingly important role in successful swaps. Whether a reciprocal swap or for credit, if others don’t stay at your home, you can’t stay at theirs. Design can sway potential switchers your way. “I definitely pay attention to the design,” Hicks says. “I’m not looking for something out of a magazine, but I want to feel like I’m on vacation.” A couple from Hawaii once reached out to Hicks offering an exchange, but the home didn’t look like a place they wanted to spend time in, so they declined. “That’s just not how I want to spend my Hawaii vacation,” she says.
On platforms like Kindred that have an application process, design is a factor that approvers are looking for. “We don’t care what your interior decoration style is, we just care that you have some interior decoration,” Palefsky says. “We look for homes that have character, genuine soul, and things like bed frames.”
For the design obsessed, house swapping can also be an exciting way to gather inspiration from real homes in a way that a stay in a hotel—even a beautiful one—can’t quite match. “There were design moments I took from her and integrated into my own home,” Wakerman says. She noticed Smith kept a small bowl in her home full of match boxes from restaurants she’d visited around the city. “I thought, This is precious; I love this concept, and I immediately did it in my own house,” she adds. Smith, while at Wakerman’s house, felt the same way. “She had these glasses, and I texted her immediately saying, ‘Where did you get these? I need them.’’
Avoiding Bad House Swaps
A good house swap comes down to good communication. “We always have a group chat with the people we do exchanges with,” Granados says. “We can ask each other questions and if there are issues with getting access to the house or other things come up, we can talk.” Everyone interviewed for this story said they rarely, if ever, had a bad experience with a home exchange. Granados offers that during one switch, the home wasn’t as clean as she would have preferred. “It was one in twenty, and every other time it’s been amazing,” she adds.
For the most part, house swappers are given great agency over their exchanges. They can offer the contents of their fridge or pantries, for example, or ask guests to refrain from their snacks. Individuals can hide valuables away if they want, or lock a closet, but most interviewed said they don’t feel the need to. “People always ask if I'm afraid of things getting stolen, and the answer is no,” Hicks says. “If someone did take something, it’s not like we don’t know where to find them,”
If you’re comfortable letting someone into your home, most recommend house swapping. “I have kids now, and I’m thinking if I would let them do it,” Cho, the florist, ponders. “I would probably want to see all of the exchange and be there for an introductory FaceTime phone call. But information is even more accessible, so it’s probably even safer to do now.”
Most swappers say that using common sense, instincts, and finding swappers through trusted platforms is the key to successful home exchanges. “It’s just like a brand-new option for travel that I feel like people haven’t really had access to before,” Wakerman says. “You basically just get to open up to the world of travel so much more and it just makes it so much more accessible.”
