If you haven’t swapped before, you may think that hosting guests mirrors Airbnb or VRBO. You may worry that your home looks nothing like a hotel: your furniture isn’t right, you haven’t stocked up on coffee and snacks much less all the chargers they would need.

The reality is, swapping homes is very different than sharing homes on income-earning sites. First of all, guests don’t expect you to cater to their hotel-like needs. More more importantly, though, with home swapping, guests actually care about exchanging lifestyles.

These aren’t the only differences between home swapping and using services like Airbnb or VROB. Below are a few other differences:

Payments

Home swapping

Nobody pays, but everyone can stay in each other’s home for free

Airbnb/VRBO

If you earn a home, you get paid when it’s rented

Cleaning

Both parties agree to cleaning before/after

Usually charged in the rental fee

Legality

Since no money is involved, you do not need a licence to stay in someone else’s home

Since you are earning income, most municipalities require a special rental licence

Experience

Most people build a relationships with each other before they swap homes to establish trust and get local advice

Very transactional in nature, although some relationships are established over time

Trust & Safety

When both parties are staying in each other’s homes, they usually share common lifestyles and establish a level of understanding on how they treat each other’s homes

A third party is usually the ‘gateway’ for building trust between members; not all members come into the transaction with equal understanding on how to treat a host’s home