Q. I'm interested in an exchange offer, how do I contact the owner?

Q. I have registered and have an account, how do I contact the owner of a particular holiday exchange listing?

A. To contact other members, you must register and subscribe to the Premium membership.
 
There are three requirements to the registration process.
 
First you must create a logon account (registration process). Next you must post a home swap listing on 1stHomeExchange.com (steps 1-5). You then subscribe to a Premium membership.
 
If you have created an Logon account, to add your listing:
 
1. Log on using your e-mail and password
 
2. Click Add A New Listing from the member's menu on the left side of the page.
 
3. Complete the fields on the page. A * indicates the information is required.
 
4. Click Next Step at the bottom of the page to save your changes and continue to the next part of your listing.
 
PLEASE NOTE:
i. If you do not click Next Step and navigate away from the page your updates will be lost.
 
ii. When adding photos, you do not need to click Next Step. Photos are saved as they are uploaded.
 
iii. If after completing your listing you need to make changes, use the Step-by-Step Guide to navigate to the page you would like to make changes to. Do this by clicking on the appropriate link in the Step-by-Step Guide.
 
Once you've added your listing, click the Premium button available from the member's area to subscribe to a Premium membership.

Q. How do I know if someone received my holiday exchange offer sent via the contact form?

A. You will receive a confirmation e-mail message for every member you contact using the contact form. In addition, from the Member Area you can access the contact history.
 
Please note that there is still no guarantee that a member will always receive your message. Their e-mail server may have anti-spam software that incorrectly identifies your message as spam. This is not specific to our site but is simply the nature of e-mail today.

Q. The contact history from my Member Area indicates another member contacted me. However I did not receive their e-mail. Why? How do I contact them?

A. Their e-mail may have been incorrectly classified as spam by your ISP's e-mail server and gone into your junk/bulk folder. Please verify this folder.
 
Log on and use the contact history to identify their reference number. Use the contact form to e-mail them.

Q. I contacted several members but only a small percentage replied. Why? Are my e-mails being sent?

A. We encourage all our members to reply however we cannot guarantee that you will receive a reply to all of your enquiries.
 
If after a few days, you haven't received a reply, start by verifying your SPAM/JUNK/BULK folder. Many ISPs and public e-mail systems such as Yahoo and Hotmail use aggressive spam filters.
 
The reverse may also be true. That is, your e-mail message may have been incorrectly identified as SPAM and ended up in the recipient's SPAM/JUNK/BULK folder. If the recipient does not review their SPAM/JUNK/BULK folder they may not be aware that you sent them a message.
 
Unfortunately, there is little we can do to influence whether a message is identified as SPAM. Our contact history (available from the Member's Area) is one way for a member to know whether he was sent a message. Of course, if the member logs on infrequently he may not realize it until much later. (However we have noticed that most members actively looking for an exchange tend to log on often.)
 
So if a member did receive your e-mail, why didn't you receive a reply?
 
Some members reply right away while others take longer to send a reply. (A person may be travelling and not have access to their e-mails.) So wait a week to 10 days before concluding someone isn't going to reply.
 
Some members receive a large number of enquiries especially when they have an interesting property for exchange (luxury property, house by the beach, high demand destinations such as Manhattan, Italy or Croatia). Many of the enquiries they receive are from people not meeting their requirements. So after a while these members only respond to those e-mails that exactly match their criteria. (This is especially true when someone has not indicated "Open".) So check to see if your destination, dates, and accommodations exactly match the member's requirements.
 
Does this mean you should only contact members where you offer exactly matches their requirements?
 
We encourage you to contact those members where you believe you have an equitable swap. You just never know when an exchanger will respond positively even if your destination is not on their preferred destination list. But please keep in mind that there is a higher probability that you will not receive a response when your offer does not exactly match the requirements of the person you are contacting.
 
If you don't receive any reply is there anything you can do?
 
You may also wish to send a second message after 7-10 days asking whether the person received your e-mail and whether there is any interest. However please limit it 2 contacts. Be brief and courteous.
 
Keep in mind that home exchanging requires time, effort, and patience. You often need to send 20, 30, or more e-mails before you get a positive response. Fortunately we are adding hundreds of new listings every week and we have a very active member community. So please check the new and updated listings often. The benefits of home exchanging are well worth the effort!

Q. Didn't find what you were looking for?

A. Continue onto the next page.