SA house swapping website takes off

WITHIN a week of the launch of South Africa’s first dedicated house swapping website, almost 60 households spanning Cape Town, Durban and the Garden Route have signed up.

Knysna couple Donald and Sarah Curtis started the website “purely for personal reasons”.

“I am a partner in a law firm,” he said. “I like to think of myself as middle class, but I still can’t afford to spend two weeks in a Cape Town hotel or guesthouse.

“The idea came from my wife Sarah, who is from Germany, who asked me two years ago already ‘why don’t people in South Africa house swap?’ Why indeed – it’s time we caught up with the rest of the world and started staying for free on holiday.”

While the site is open to overseas listings, Curtis said “we’re focused on facilitating swaps by and between South Africans within South Africa”.

The system is largely based on trust, and Curtis recommends that members spend time getting to know potential house swapping partners through the website’s messaging system, email or Skype. “You get to know other members through the site, and if you don’t like them, you don’t swap,” he said.

Members of the site are screened to ensure that they are the true home owners, and house swapping partners can download a contract and negotiate a deposit if they wish.

Darrel Sheer, who has signed up her Knysna home, said: “I think it’s a wonderful opportunity... to have a fully furnished house for your family to stay in, a kitchen to cook in and best of all, a free holiday”.

While it is free to list a home and to view all of the other homes on the website, www.houseswap.co.za, to contact a potential house swap partner, the site charges a membership free of R425 for six months or R750 for 12 months.

TimesLive readers are mostly sceptical of letting strangers into their homes.

While Sandy Green Amirykal Baqwa said “good idea, I would”, Thato Matek said he did not trust anyone except his own family. Boingotlo Gasekoma would want some areas off-limits: “The rules will be no sleeping in the master’s bedroom – let alone sex in it!!”