Tips on home swapping: How to create the perfect property listing

Ready to drum up some seri­ous inter­est in your prop­er­ty? Excel­lent news! Keep read­ing, and we’ll share an overview of how to cre­ate a great prop­er­ty list­ing, before mov­ing onto a sec­tion-by-sec­tion guide on what to include, and how to make your home real­ly stand out.

Make it attention-grabbing

View­ers of your list­ing will be scour­ing through var­i­ous oth­er homes in the area, so to make sure yours stands out from the crowd, keep your pro­file clear and con­cise. Make the first sen­tence of your descrip­tion atten­tion-grab­bing, and be sure to break infor­ma­tion into clear paragraphs.

Make it personal

The whole point of home swap­ping is that you enjoy the human side of trav­el. Let your guests know what makes your place great, what is there to do in the local area (par­tic­u­lar­ly the stuff that the guide­books don’t tell you about), and don’t for­get to share a lit­tle bit about your­selves. This is espe­cial­ly impor­tant if you’re ask­ing for a Clas­sic Swap where you’ll be stay­ing at their place too — they need to know that they’re going to be swap­ping with like­mind­ed people!

Keep it updated

No one likes out-of-date infor­ma­tion on a pro­file. So if you men­tion spe­cif­ic trav­el dates or your cir­cum­stances have changed, then make sure you update your descrip­tion and keep your cal­en­dar up-to-date.

Prop­er­ty title

Aside from your prop­er­ty pho­tos and loca­tion, this is per­haps one of the first things mem­bers will read about your home – so it’s cru­cial that you pitch your home in the best pos­si­ble way. You should aim for your open­ing line to be around 40 to 60 char­ac­ters long, and high­light key ele­ments of your home – such as size, loca­tion (includ­ing neigh­bour­hood if rel­e­vant), and features.

Here are some exam­ples to inspire you:

“Tra­di­tion­al 4‑bedroom thatched cot­tage near Bath, Somerset”

“Lux­u­ry 2‑bedroom pent­house apart­ment in Brook­lyn, New York City”

“Char­ac­ter-filled vil­la with vine­yard views in Umbria, Italy”

“Spa­cious 5‑bedroom chalet just min­utes from slopes in Whistler, Canada”

“Clas­sic Parisian apart­ment in Le Marais, Paris”

About your home

A well-writ­ten home descrip­tion is a cru­cial ele­ment for any Love Home Swap pro­file. It doesn’t have to be a work of lit­er­a­ture, but it should be detailed enough so that peo­ple know what to expect from your home, whilst being con­cise enough so that it’s easy to read. Around 200 – 300 words is the ide­al length.

What ameni­ties your home has – think about what your home offers that would make your guests com­fort­able. This could be things such as a Net­flix login, good WiFi, boardgames, and any bonus fea­tures such as bikes, kayaks and oth­er leisure equipment.

Ben­e­fits of your home – are you close to local trans­port? Do you have a qui­et neigh­bour­hood — or lots of local restau­rants and cafes? Men­tion any­thing that you par­tic­u­lar­ly like about your home and the sur­round­ing area.

Give an idea of what it’s like to live in your home – what local attrac­tions are there? What are your favourite things to do in your home?

Details and expec­ta­tions – are you offer­ing your car for swap? Do you have any pets that need tak­ing care of? Do you need home swap­pers to water your plants? Of course, you can always just men­tion this in dis­cus­sions with future home swap­pers if you don’t want to include it in your profile!

Don’t for­get that good spelling, gram­mar and full sen­tences are a must. Go for a warm and invit­ing tone, as the more tempt­ing your home sounds, the more swap requests you’ll receive!

TOP TIP: Make your pro­file easy to read by using para­graphs to break up your descrip­tion. And if you’re writ­ing about each room, use head­ings so that the infor­ma­tion is easy to find.

Prop­er­ty features

It’s impor­tant to list what fea­tures your home has, so that swap­pers can find your home eas­i­ly using search fil­ters. These fil­ters include:

Type of home: Whether you are look­ing to swap in a vaca­tion home or a main home.

Kid-friend­ly: Are you look­ing for a fam­i­ly hol­i­day, or a break that’s just for the grown-ups?

Dif­fer­ent swap options: Are you look­ing for some­where that’s pet-friend­ly? Or do you want to attract oth­er home swap­pers look­ing to trav­el in your area?

Home-style: Look­ing for a trip by the sea? Some­thing in a rur­al set­ting? Or maybe you’re after a ski chalet? What­ev­er you want to find, these fil­ter options have you covered!

Fea­tures: If you’re after some­thing real­ly spe­cif­ic – like a home with a pool, a clean­er and a gym – then these handy fil­ters will help you find exact­ly what you have in mind.

To edit the fea­tures of your home, sim­ply head to ​‘My pro­file’, select the home you’d like to edit, and select ​‘Details’ on the left-hand nav­i­ga­tion pan­el. You can find out more about search fil­ters here.

3 things about you

Swap­ping is about peo­ple, so it’s impor­tant that your pro­file lets oth­er mem­bers know who you are. The more spe­cif­ic you are, the bet­ter poten­tial swap­pers will be able to work out if they can accom­mo­date you and your fam­i­ly. So let them know who’s in your fam­i­ly, how old you all are, and who will be travelling.

It’s good to let some per­son­al­i­ty shine through your pro­file, let­ting oth­ers know what you enjoy doing on hol­i­day, as what inter­ests you have might ini­ti­ate some con­ver­sa­tion. So for exam­ple, if you all love nature, swap­pers in places of out­stand­ing nat­ur­al beau­ty will more like­ly con­tact you than those in urban areas.

The ​‘About Us’ sec­tion is also a good place to let swap­pers know some impor­tant details. So for exam­ple, if you have any phys­i­cal require­ments or pets, or any pre­ferred loca­tions or timings.

Typ­i­cal fea­tures that you might want to include in this sec­tion are:

- Your profession

- Who you usu­al­ly trav­el with

- Your hobbies

- Your passions

- Any per­son­al require­ments such as child­care needs, whether you have pets etc

Below are some exam­ples of how to write a great ​‘More about us’ section.

Exam­ple 1:

“We’re a pro­fes­sion­al cou­ple in our ear­ly 30s who work from home pre­dom­i­nant­ly. Dan is a Devel­op­er and Sarah is a Graph­ic Design­er. We also have a friend­ly sausage dog called Mabel.”

“We’re orig­i­nal­ly from York­shire, Eng­land but have been liv­ing in Mel­bourne for the last 5 years.”

“We love to trav­el and have been to over 40 coun­tries! Our favourite so far is Colombia.”

Exam­ple 2:

“We’re a semi-retired cou­ple in our ear­ly 60s. John is a Phi­los­o­phy lec­tur­er at UCLA and Claire is a pae­di­atric doctor.”

“In our spare time, John loves to go fish­ing in our vaca­tion home in Lake Tahoe. Claire is a keen painter and also loves reading.”

“We have two grown-up chil­dren, David (26) and Adam (24), who some­times trav­el with us.”

Exam­ple 3:

“We’re a fam­i­ly of five – Amy (14), Sam (10), Har­ri (8) liv­ing in Hamp­stead, London.”

“Jen­nifer is a yoga instruc­tor and Arthur works with­in the char­i­ty sector.”

“We’re keen hik­ers and love an active hol­i­day. As well as our Hamp­stead home, we also have a hol­i­day home in Bali that is avail­able to swap.”

To edit your ​‘More about us’ sec­tion, sim­ply head to the ​‘My Pro­file’ sec­tion of your account.

Dream des­ti­na­tions

If you’re look­ing to trav­el some­where spe­cif­ic, let poten­tial swap­pers know. The dream des­ti­na­tions sec­tion lets oth­er mem­bers find you more eas­i­ly. And if you’re open for any­where, you can select this option too!

Make sure your update these loca­tions reg­u­lar­ly, as this helps swap­pers find mem­bers who are look­ing to swap where they are.

Avail­abil­i­ty

To improve the qual­i­ty of your swap requests, it is impor­tant to have your avail­abil­i­ty cal­en­dar set up. Using the cal­en­dar prop­er­ly means that you can let oth­er mem­bers know when your home is avail­able, which also makes it eas­i­er for them to find the per­fect home swap.

You can choose from avail­able, unavail­able and open for offers.

Avail­able – Your home is open to offers from mem­bers, or you’re plan­ning on going away and are look­ing for a swap.

Open to offers – You are flex­i­ble with your trav­el plans and are hap­py to con­sid­er offers for this time.

Not avail­able – This may mean that you or anoth­er mem­ber will be stay­ing in your home dur­ing this time.

Find out more about avail­abil­i­ty and how to update your swap cal­en­dar in our guide here.

Neigh­bour­hood

Peo­ple are not only look­ing for a love­ly home, but also for an area that appeals to them, so it’s impor­tant to real­ly sell your loca­tion. As well as includ­ing pho­tos in your list­ing, it’s a good idea to rec­om­mend places in the ​‘Neigh­bour­hood’ sec­tion of your listing.

This doesn’t have to be extreme­ly detailed. We’ve made it eas­i­er by hand­pick­ing cat­e­gories for you to fill in. These include:

Buzzy restau­rants

Cool bars

Cozy cafes

Retail ther­a­py

Bit of culture

Walks in the park

Spot of exercise

Day trip­ping