Most home exchangers are honest. They tell you where their home is actually located and you consider a swap with them based on good information. A few people, who harm the entire home exchange community, lie.
Recently I saw on HomeExchange.com that fully half the swappers with 3+ bedroom homes in my area were pretending that their outlying homes were in prime New York City locations. Large apartments are scarce and unbelievable expensive in Manhattan. People who want elbow room often buy in cheaper areas like New Jersey, Long Island, Brooklyn, Staten Island or northern suburbs. Unscrupulous locals list their homes as being in Manhattan or "New York City" then say the home is "only a few miles from midtown Manhattan".
Suburban fibbers neglect to mention the perpetual traffic. It makes those few miles take hours to traverse at most times of day by car or bus. Even in New York City, northern neighborhoods of Manhattan and most parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island are quite far from Manhattan. From those areas you need to spend two to four hours round-trip on a train or ferry commuting to Manhattan attractions. That's not a fun way to spend a vacation. Even less fun is driving. Parking and dodging crazy drivers in New York City is dangerous, expensive and inconvenient. All of this is why most exchangers only want to swap for Manhattan homes, and it's why some people outside of central Manhattan lie.
This wide-spread problem caused me concern for my fellow swappers, and also for myself. For one thing, I don't want more exchangers, like the French family I recently wrote about, to have a bad experience when the swap home listed in Manhattan turns out to be in a dicey part of northern Manhattan or New Jersey. And I wondered how I would make sure an out-of-town home that interested me was in a good, or even accurate, location.
I'm collecting ideas about that to share with you. I will also write more about how to highlight your home's benefits, no matter where it is located. It is never necessary, or advisable, to lie about where your home is. The last thing you want is angry people with the keys to your front door.
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