Swapping homes helps people see faraway places

New clubs seek to match home exchangers interested exclusively in golf or who want to swap motor homes or sailboats, said Leslie Nicodemus of Tiburon, a self-proclaimed "exchange diva" of KnowYourTrade.com. Know Your Trade is a kind of Yelp for home exchange clubs. It connects prospective home exchangers with clubs and encourages members to rate and review clubs.

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It's hard to know how many Bay Area residents have done home exchanges, but it's clear that the Bay Area is a hotbed of activity. Kushins said about 400 of his listings come from the Bay Area. The directors of the U.S. chapter of another home exchange company, InterVac, are based in the Bay Area.

Another Bay Area couple run a home exchange directory and rating Web site as well as a trade group for home exchange companies, complete with ethics rules and mediation for groups that feel their clients have been poached by upstart clubs.

Why is the Bay Area so popular? Simple, said Nicodemus. San Francisco is a world city.

"New York City, San Francisco and Paris are the three huge, huge areas for home exchange," she estimated. "Wherever you want to go, you can get an exchange if you live in the Bay Area. That's how we got to Paris and Mexico. It wasn't because we were looking to go. It's because people approached us. We get 10 to 20 home exchangers a week writing to us."

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While both Kushins and Nicodemus said no one has reported theft or serious crimes during exchanges, they do sometimes hear about houses left messy

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