Home swaps rentals have never been more popular. Travelers and digital nomads looking for unique experiences love the individuality and hospitality of home exchanges, while owners around the world love using their homes to earn extra income.
If you’re looking to join the tens of thousands of home trade and rental hosts around the country, sites like Airbnb, VRBO and HomeExchange make it relatively easy to list your property with pictures and a description to ensure its appeal to potential guests online. But it’s the little details of the stay itself that can make or break your short-term rental or home exchange success. Keep reading for our top home staging tips to make your house swap a five-star experience for you – and your guests!
House Swap Tip #1: Store your Stuff
Take a long hard look at your home and belongings. Pack away any personal items, mementos or effects, including family pictures and challenging artwork, to create as neutral and comfortable of a space as possible. Carefully wrap and pack anything fragile or breakable too. Replace ceramic or porcelain items with metal or plastic. Don’t take away too much, though. Invest in some basic landscape photos or canvases and add ambiance with a colorful throw or (washable) pillows on the couch and flowers on the coffee table.
House Swap Tip #2: Also Store your Furniture
If you’ve got furniture pieces that are valuable to you, take them to a climate-controlled, self-storage unit. Things sometimes get damaged during home swaps. Try to lessen the emotional or financial fallout by removing anything that would break your heart (or wallet) if it were subjected to extensive wear and tear or even ruined. You can replace the missing items with new pieces from relatively cheap furniture stores, and no one will be the wiser.
House Swap Tip #3: Make Space for Your Guests
While you’re making trips back and forth to your self-storage unit, don’t forget to add all of your seasonal clothing to the mix. You’ll want to make sure your guests have reasonable-to-ample dresser and closet space (with plenty of hangers!) in which to store their hung and folded clothes, shoes and bags – and that means moving your stuff out. Check out our recent blog post about How to Store your Winter Clothing and Gear for more advice.
House Swap Tip #4: Make Home Staging a Priority
Remember that you’re competing for guests with other home exchange hosts and try to make your space as special and memorable as possible. Little touches like chocolates on the pillow or a rubber ducky in the shower can go a long way towards a rave review. Of course, make sure there are clean sheets and fresh towels ready to go as well (hint: you can store your personal ones at CubeSmart during the stay). You might want to also neatly label the drawers and cupboards to make guests feel at ease quickly.
House Swap Tip #5: Everybody Loves a Freebie
Create a basket of toiletries for your guests including shampoo, conditioner, disposable razors and either a bar or liquid body soap. Save money and time by buying these items (along with toilet paper, paper towels, coffee pods, tea bags and hand soap) in bulk and keeping the backstock in your storage unit.
House Swap Tip #6: Leave the Plants
Most guests love fresh greenery – as long as it’s low-maintenance and good-looking. Clean up your plants, including washing and dusting the leaves and trimming off any dead bits, and repot them in attractive, coordinated planters for the best effect. It’s reasonable to ask your guests to water your plants if you must, but aim to get plants that can survive best in low-water situations (e.g., snake plants, spider plants and sago or ponytail palms).
House Swap Tip #7: Create a Home Exchange Welcome Kit
While online platforms like Airbnb allow hosts to add important info and recommendations to their listings, it’s much more personal to leave a binder or book full of helpful advice on the coffee table or kitchen counter. Have fun with it! List need-to-know details, of course, but also support small businesses by recommending your favorite neighborhood sights, restaurants and grocery stores. You can add a book or two on local history for your guests to familiarize themselves with your location as well. Give your guests the same information you would give a friend or family member staying at your house – they’ll truly appreciate the effort!
House Swap Tip #8: Prepare for All Kinds of Weather
Perhaps it’s misplaced optimism, but almost nobody goes on a vacation or a prolonged stay in a new place and prepares for bad weather. You can make their trip comfortable no matter what Mother Nature has in store by keeping an extra umbrella, shovel, ice melt and automobile ice-scraper close at hand. Just pop all the foul weather supplies in a decorative basket by the door and your guests will have just what they need when they need it. If you live in a particularly damp or snowy environment, it would also be wise to add a boot tray near the main doorway. Your floors and carpets will thank you!
House Swap Tip #9: Safety First, Last, and Always
It is critical that you pay attention to safety issues within your rental. Secure paintings, dressers, TV stands and bookcases to the walls. Place flashlights (with extra batteries) in an easy-to-find location. Prep and stock a first aid kit, with bandages, first aid ointment, ibuprofen, and aspirin. Buy one or more fire extinguishers, and also make sure that baking soda is located near the stove (in case of grease fires). Be sure to make mention of all of these items to your guests during the welcome tour as well as in the written information.
House Swap Tip #10: Stop Stressing and Enjoy the Ride
It’s the last tip on our list – but it should probably be the first. Stop stressing! Home swaps are meant to be easygoing encounters that give guests a taste of “real life” in your town or city, and give you extra income. Things will go wrong. Things will get broken. You will probably get a midnight phone call about a toilet. The internet will definitely stop working. To lessen the impact of these occurrences, communicate as much as possible about your home and all of its quirks with your guests before the stay so that everyone has similar expectations. And learn from your experiences! Ask your guests for a positive review at the end. If it’s not positive – find out what went wrong so that you can make it better for the next guests.
Home staging for a house swap doesn’t have to be tricky. You can make your guests feel at home within your home, but also leave plenty of room for them to be themselves and enjoy their vacations on their own terms. Do some research before you get started by taking a look at the reviews for other, highly ranked home exchanges in your area. Does anything in particular stand out that you could add to – or change about – your rental? Take advice, share your tips freely, and enjoy your home swap experience!
