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Share the Leslieville Love With Travellers (Part Two)

In my last blog post, I told you all about my travel addiction, and one way we've discovered to make things a little more affordable... by doing house swaps through homeexchange.com. I said I'd be back with Part Two of the story in a week's time, but that was back in June... oops! Now it's almost the end of July. Turns out that taking care of my 4-month old daughter and preparing for our upcoming holidays has taken up all my time.

But anyway, here I am with Part Two. I'd love to tell you about our travel plans for August and September, and how it's not costing us a penny. Honestly.

I'm on maternity leave, so the budget is extra tight these days. Ian's going to take some parental leave too, so we can both be off work for a couple months, enjoying precious time with Little C. And since there's no real reason why we have to stay in town, we wanted to hit the road.

We looked for a home exchange, but couldn't find one that worked (either the dates or the destination were wrong). So we decided to try renting out our house as a vacation property, just to see what would happen. We put it up on the popular vacation rental website Airbnb, and were overwhelmed with the response. Very quickly, our home was booked for 5 weeks - 1 week each for 5 different families.

We then turned around and booked our own vacation rental properties (a cottage through cottagecountry.com and a NYC apartment through Airbnb). Both places we've rented cost less than what we're renting our house for, so we've made enough money to cover our travel expenses. The picture above is from the cottage we've rented - I cannot wait to dive into that lake!

For the most part, renting out our house has been a breeze. There is some coordination involved though - we have arranged for the house to be professionally cleaned between renters, and a friend will act as our "house host" while we're away (should emergencies arise, she will be nearby). Since we've done home exchanges before, we know how to prepare the house for guests. We clear out space in the closets, and put away any valuables. We have a "home binder" with basic instructions about the place and how things run.

Airbnb takes care of all the payments (they charge the renters, and then deposit money into my PayPal account). They also oversee a $500 damage deposit for us, and are available if we have any issues with our renters. They charge a 3% fee for using their service, but I figure it's well worth it. If you want to know more about my dealings with Airbnb, let me know, and I'll be happy to share more info.

We hit the road this Friday, so you'll have to wait another month or so to hear how it all went. I promise to report back once we're home again.

And if you're thinking about doing a home exchange, or renting out your place while you travel, I strongly encourage you to go for it. You wouldn't believe how many people want to come stay in Leslieville. Case in point - since I last blogged about home exchanging, we received an email from a family in Edinburgh who want to do an exchange with us in Spring 2012. They're excited about being in Leslieville, and it sounds like it's going to work for us. Scotland, here we come!

Enjoy the rest of your summer, whether you're getting out of town, or sticking around.

[Want more blog posts about travel and living in Leslieville? Check out Stuff Avery Likes]

Tags: Avery, Rental, Travel, Vacation

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Comment by Avery on August 3, 2011 at 6:10pm: So far so good! The first family is there right now (I'm visiting with my in-laws). The renters are lovely - we met them when they arrived on the weekend. A lovely family of 4 from a small town in Wales.

I have a good friend popping by our place every couple of days to check in and water the plants, and she says everything looks fine. So I'm sleeping fine at night (except when the baby gets me up) and not worrying about it at all.

If you want to do a home exchange but "start small", then consider doing a weekend exchange to somewhere nearby. Like Montreal. We did our first exchange with a couple in Victoria - we chose a Canadian exchange on purpose. As silly as it sounds, we wanted the people in our house to be generally familiar with the way things work and the local customs. If you've ever tried using a toilet in Europe or the heating in England, you'll know what I mean - things can be different. So somehow we felt safer exchanging in Canada for the first time - both for us, and for our exchange partners.

I'll think of some other tips and work on a new blog post about it!

Comment by melissa on August 3, 2011 at 4:53pm: Avery - thanks for such a great response to the Airbnb "disaster".

Since reading your first post, the hubby and I have seriously been considering Home Exchange. I look forward to hearing about your experiences over the next few months - very helpful for us "Home Exchange" virgins!

Comment by Avery on August 2, 2011 at 9:14am: Update - Airbnb has added a new "safety policy". They now protect home owners for up to $50,000 worth of damages, amongst other new initiatives. Check it out here: http://www.airbnb.com/safety

Comment by Avery on July 29, 2011 at 6:42pm: In a word, no. It hasn't affected my views at all. That was a crazy incident by potentially malicious people. Airbnb has facilitated hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of rentals, and this is the first big incident in 3 years.

To me, it's like asking if I heard about a car crash, and then wondering if it concerns me for the next time I get in a car.

I make sure I email back and forth with my renters, and if anything seems fishy, it probably is, and I can cancel the booking at any time. Yes, I know the woman in San Fran had positive correspondence with her hellish renters. But again, that was one crazy isolated instance.

My first renters arrive tomorrow. I'll be there to meet them in person - another good way to tell if someone's kookoo. They're the first of 5 families I'll have in my house. Once it's all over, I'll let you know how it went.

Comment by Naomi Eaton on July 29, 2011 at 6:07pm: Has the incident with the AirBnb user in San Francisco getting her place trashed affected your views of these home sharing sites? Did they sufficiently increase security?