Home Exchange saves money and offers a genuine local experience

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Structured approach is the best way to find home exchange that rates

A home exchange with another family in the United States or abroad can give you wonderful memories and save you money. But making the arrangement requires time, patience and a bit of salesmanship. Here are tips for a great exchange.

_Start early. Like now. The two largest exchange organizations, Vacation Exchange Club and Intervac, publish catalogs three times a year. However, their first-of-the-year catalogs _ out in January and February, respectively _ are the biggest.

``All the action happens in January,'' says Karl Costabel of Vacation Exchange Club. (The deadlines for these two organizations are within the next week or two; you can reserve space over the phone or by faxing a listing.)

When we began setting up an exchange, we didn't realize how long the process would take; we got listed in midyear publications, hoping to arrange something within a couple months. No dice. It was not until the January and February catalogs came out that inquiries from abroad came in _ about 15 over a period of about six weeks. By March we had settled on our Paris exchange partner; by May we had settled on dates for a mid-August exchange.

_Be specific in your listing. Most exchange services ask you to fill out a standardized form, on which you check off such things as the number of children in your family, how many bedrooms your house has, distance from a major city, availability of a car. Important information to specify is where you are willing to go and the dates you can travel.

_Include a photo. Listings that include a photograph get the most responses, and it's worth spending the extra money ($11-$15 for a year's worth of catalogs).

Lori Horne of Intervac suggests your photo show what you are selling _ if your house has a great view, show that. If your pool is the best feature of your house, show that. Many exchangers include a family snapshot, but Horne doesn't believe this helps much.

_Be flexible. The more restrictions you place on where and when you want to go, the fewer options you will have.

Be aware that many Europeans travel only in the summer months, specifically August; this is the easiest time to arrange a trip. But also know that there are plenty of scholars and retired people around the world with flexible schedules.

_Blanket the world. Once you receive a catalog, put together a brief form letter stating that you are interested in exchanging, and send it to the entries you find enticing. We sent about 20 letters to Europeans; Horne of Intervac says she's sent far more than that in some years.

If you receive an inquiry or response that sounds promising, send off snapshots and a longer description. My husband wrote a ``resume'' of our house that was downright poetic, and we also sent postcards showing the cliffs and beach in our town.

_Telephone. If a listing looks absolutely, positively perfect _ telephone. The Tuscan villas, the Parisian apartments and the ranches in Santa Fe are snatched up quickly. Your pleasant, responsible-sounding voice on the line may convince a fellow exchanger that you are the one. Just be sure you've checked the time-zone differences, or you'll make an entirely different impression.

_Ask lots of questions. Then ask some more. Once you have exchanged letters and maybe a phone call, and have agreed to exchange, start asking questions about everything that will make a stay in a strange home pleasant. Is there a washing machine? Does the car have insurance that will cover you, or does the fellow exchanger have a driver's license that is valid in the United States? Is there someone to clean the house or how can you hire one? Does anyone in the family smoke?

``Ask for everything you want,'' Horne says.

Finally, ask for phone numbers to be used in an emergency and, if possible, the name of a neighbor or friend who can help if something goes wrong.

_Look at a map. Be sure to know exactly where you are going. Once we started to correspond with our Parisian exchanger, we pinpointed her apartment on a map and asked friends familiar with the city what the neighborhood was like. This is particularly important if you do not know the area.

_Be sure to have contingency plans. What if, the week before you leave for Tasmania, your exchange family says it won't budge?

Though home-exchange companies say this rarely happens, it is best to have discussed contingency plans with your exchange partner in advance. If you at least have a letter saying that the family will move to a hotel or stay with friends if they cannot leave, perhaps you can use this as leverage. But of course, you will have no legal recourse _ that is a risk of this process.

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