When times are slow… find the hidden profits…

It may come as a surprise to hear that I have been looking forward to next year’s “down time” in my condos. It’s true, I have no choice, but I’ve realized recently that an empty property is a golden opportunity!

Back in the ’90s, friends of mine spent a summer in Ireland by exchanging their home for a stay in a home in Dublin. They REALLY soaked up the experience, became familiar with the whole neighborhood, became “regulars” at the local pub, and to this day they’re in contact with friends they made. They are geneology buffs, and this whole entire summer gave them so much time for research!

Expensive, right? Nope. They simply traded their home in Pagosa Springs, Colorado for the home in Dublin. No money was exchanged, but many emails were. Do you have a water filter? Can we also exchange cars? Bikes? When it was all said and done, my friend shipped her must-have juicer over there, and they moved right in like they lived there, with a three-year-old in tow.

This wasn’t common back then, but now there are multiple exchanges online, and people do it all the time.

Why is our situation better? We can exchange a home we don’t live in! We can do non-simultaneous exchanges (meaning we don’t have to match dates with our exchange visitors), and the guest who visits will not need our actual home to stay in – they will stay in our mid-term rental, which is perfectly equipped for a stay any time. And it’s vacant… so, why not squeeze some benefits from it anyway?

I haven’t done it yet, but it’s definitely happening next year.

Before I thought of using our rental condos, I had signed up at HomeExchange.com and posted our home in New Orleans as a property for exchange. We live in a quiet neighborhood, not really set up for tourists at all… and I got so many offers, it was crazy. I had offers from Brazil, Costa Rica, all over Europe, and lots of offers from across the US all year. Unfortunately, that year was crazy for us, and there was never a good time to accept the offer – because we would have to travel and be in their home, and we just couldn’t leave.

That problem is solved by offering one of our vacant rental properties. No matter what our schedule is like, we are able to do a “non-simultaneous exchange” with someone, gather points for hosting, and use our credits when we can do so. It’s just brilliant!

And shockingly, New Orleans is recognized around the world and sought after as a destination. I knew we had lots of tourists, but it was just amazing how many homes, much larger than ours, were offered in trade. It isn’t always an equal exchange, but the desire for the location trumps everything else.

Another thing I’ve done is host co-workers from out of state, friends and family, and used the condos as a gift for graduations, anniversaries, and other occasions; all while mourning lost rental income and making the most of it.

We will never have 100% occupancy. Well, it happens sometimes, but it’s not typical.

Why not enjoy the beautiful spaces we’ve created by using them to enhance our lives? We can travel when we aren’t hosting, and it will open doors to places that today’s tight budgets would normally eliminate.

I’m going to sign up with Home Exchange again in January. Let me know if you know of others, and let’s chat in the forum about our experiences with this idea.