Looking for a last minute home exchange?

If you are searching for a last minute exchange, and are reading this now, so are many other travelers also searching for last minute exchanges.

These non listing travelers will never know if you are looking for an exchange unless you can communicate this to them. This is where a last minute exchange listing is too your advantage.

At Global, we participate in exchanging homes too! Our family has also been successful in arranging last minute exchanges with travel starting less then 10 days after we started looking. We have also experienced the feeling of missing out on an exchange because we started too late. With the experiences from our Global last minute home exchange listers and ourselves, we have put together some practical ideas to help you have more opportunities of finding a last minute exchange.

For someone that lists their own home for exchange it's having it noticed by someone living in the area you wish to exchange. Global receives over 500 000 visitors each year. We constantly market our site to the search engines and media. This is why we advertise your home under different categories, feature homes, long term sabbatical exchanges, luxury vacation homes and shorter term exchanges.

Why list your own home? First, for every one lister there are 10 other non listers looking for an exchange. This gives a distinct advantage to our listers in finding a home exchange.

Second, its a very small investment to list your home. Think of how many hundreds or thousands of dollars you save on accommodation through a home exchange. It is only $20 for a two year listing that you can first use as a last minute home exchange ad then self edit as often as you like for other exchange periods throughout the year.

• If you don't have your own listing and you want to find an exchange, you need to send out a great deal of emails to other listers and hope that your email timing was ahead of some other exchanger who is also looking for an exchange.

Free home exchange Ideas on finding a last minute home exchange

There are as many reasons for travelers to want a last minute home exchange as there are travelers looking for a last minute travel bargain. A home exchange provides free accommodation - more space and comfort that most hotel rooms...

How does one find a home swap at the last minute?

Be flexible and be open to emailing a lot of people and be open to listing your own home exchange listing. Think of a listing as an investment. Your cost of a membership can save your hundreds to thousands of dollars in hotel bills. "Risk is what one pays to enjoy opportunity"

Global has had several success stories with last minute listers arranging home exchanges:

1. Be flexible. If you want to go to New York, with travel to begin next week, then you improve your opportunities for a last minute home exchange by being open to finding an exchange to New York City and area instead of just Manhattan. Have a plan "B". This usually includes a date whereby if you haven't arranged an exchange you either open your choices of destination to any destination or make defer your exchange to later and make other plans


2. We have had success finding our own last minute home exchange by emailing everyone (it's free to contact a Global home exchange lister or a lister from one of our affiliate clubs) that had a listing from the area we wanted to travel. As an example, we wanted an home exchange to Seattle last December. We started emailing all Seattle and area listers December 8 for an exchange December 19. We emailed every home exchange lister on Global Home Exchange regardless of the destination or dates they listed. Often a person listing has a particular destination in mind, but may change their mind when they receive your inquiry for an exchange.
   
   The home exchange lister you write to may not have an interest in an exchange to your area but they may know of another family that hasn't listed that would welcome an exchange. Our first exchange was arranged because someone we wrote to, referred another couple to our listing.
   
   From our emails, not only did we have 2 offers for last minute home exchanges, we also received an email from a family that was going to be away at the time we wanted an exchange and offered their home for us to house sit. We received a third offer through our last minute home exchange ad
   
   When sending an email to someone regarding their listing, place the words "last minute home exchange" in the subject line.


3. If you are a Global member looking for a last minute exchange, let us know and we will try to help. Last year we were successful in finding last minute exchanges for our listers between the US & France, Germany & Canada and Ireland & Italy with travel in each case beginning less than three weeks from advertising. We won't guarantee you will find a last minute exchange but we will sure try to help you improve your opportunities.

List your own home. Why? First, for every one lister there are 10 other non listers looking for an exchange. This gives a distinct advantage to our listers in finding a home exchange.

Second, its a very small investment to list your home. Think of how many hundreds or even thousands of dollars you save on accommodation through a home exchange. $20 for a two year listing that you can first use as a last minute home exchange ad then self edit as often as you like for other exchange periods throughout the year.