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OWNERS of second homes are cashing in on an increasing variety of holidays thanks to the growing home exchange market. Agencies have long been around allowing people to swap houses for a holiday, but they are reporting a sharp increase in those who are making second homes available for exchanges.
The trend sprang up, according to home-swap companies, because people get bored visiting the same place.
Homelink and Intervac, two of the leading agencies, say that there have been thousands of inquiries from second-home owners. Jon Connolly, of Homelink, says: “Some people think it’s a chore visiting the same place again and again. With home exchange they can barter it and don’t feel guilty about not using it.”
Second-home ownership has increased in recent years, with more than 250,000 people owning a property abroad and more than 350,000 within the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics. The favourite overseas countries are Spain, followed by France, the United States, Portugal and Italy. Homelink has about 14,000 properties on its books, including 1,600 in the UK.
Elissa and Roy Anderson have used the agency 18 times, visiting Hawaii, Australia, South Africa and America by swapping their Fulham property. Roy says: “We spent three weeks in Hawaii in exchange for a week in our London flat.”
Details: Homelink (www.homelink.org.uk) |
