Vacation Home Exchange

There are several home exchange agencies that operate in similar manners and have similar fees. They act mostly as listing services. You make your own arrangements directly with other exchange wannabes. They usually allow open access to their listings, but contact information is available only after you pay the fee.
I suggest you use Google to find some of the sites; and then, survey the offerings. Look at companies with the largest numbers in places that interest you. I found it a bit difficult to separate the bona fide exchange offers from those that were really offers to rent. Not a huge problem, but time consuming.
More questions? Feel free to ask.

I have a friend that uses sabbatical.com
Especially good if you live somewhat near a university that may have conferences, visiting professors, etc.
I know nothing about how it all works - just throwing out the name.

Hi rrufrano,

I just got an email from HomeExchange.com, which reminded me of their exact name. They were fine, as were a couple of others we used. Oops, another just popped to mind, Intervac.com.

I have successfully used HomeExchange and HomeforExchange services for our exchanges. All exchanges went very well, but I had a greater success rate on matches vs requests with Home for Exchange. It is a smaller site (fewer listings) that Home Exchange, but my experience was I got better results with Home for Exchange. I don't know why, and 8 exchanges is certainly not a statistical sample. I will use both sites again, though I've currently let my subscriptions to both lapse as I'm not able to travel much at the moment and I got tired of saying no to partner requests.

My best tip for using the sites is to be very clear in your description when and where you'd like to go. I live in Western Canada, which is very beloved by Australians. Sadly, Australia is out of reach for us until retirement, but I still had to turn down many requests from there because they didn't read or didn't care about my Europe-only destination list. And when you are searching for a partner, take their destination preferences into account or you're just wasting your time.

And finally, be the exchange partner you hope they are - respond to all requests, even with just a quick no thank you. It is very frustrating to get zero responses to your emails. Finally, Home Exchange is about relationships. If you just want a bed, use airbnb or hotels. Once you find someone who is interested, Exchange emails, book Skype calls, get to know them a bit. We really enjoyed meeting our Exchange partners, and felt more comfortable about sharing our home with people we'd gotten to know a little.

We have friends that have been extremely successful with home exchanges for over 5 years and on their recommendation we also signed up. Despite listing a home in downtown Vancouver, Canada (same location as our friends) we didn't get any offers that were attractive to us in the 2 years we were listed. In chatting with our friends, I think we are probably too narrow in terms of the destinations that were attractive to us. We are urban travellers as compared to our friends who are happy to stay in more rural locations as a home base and venture out on day trips or short visits. I'd still recommend it as an option and don't regret having given it a shot. I'd do a Google search as I'm sure there are magazine and online articles comparing all the exchange sites.

Lots of info here:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/european-home-exchange

We've done 13 exchanges in the past 10 years. We have always used homeexchange.com. It's only about $130 a year to join which gives you access to everyone's emails who are members. They have over 60,000 members and it's quite easy to find people to exchange with! Feel free to PM me with any questions or advice. We've got it down to a science now!