Luckily, your hook is very, very easy. This is it: "We have a nice house in an interesting location. You will have a great time here."
Obviously you have to tart this up. But the simple truth is home exchangers, like everyone else, want to know what's in it for them.
Here is the beginning of the least enticing home exchange offer I have yet received:
""When I decided to enlist in the home exchange adventure it was slightly selfish in that my goal was to save hotel costs and increase spending funds."
Why is this offer so utterly unappealing right from the beginning?
I don't do home exchange to help you go home with more souvenirs. If that's your motivation, please do not contact me. People whose goal is to avoid spending money on a hotel room tend to treat my apartment like a hotel room, and that's not good. Especially in this case where the exchanger has a large family, it's an immediate red flag.
This potential swapper continues,
"While traveling we spend so little time in our hotel room but love to travel."
The goal of this statement seems to be to convince me that the family won't mess up our home because they will rarely be here. It's odd to me that they feel a need to say this. It makes me think their children are destructive. If they just want a place to sleep a cheap hotel room is their best option. Again, not the goal of home exchange.
In closing, this family offers the most bizarre reason yet why I should swap with them:
"I am confident from what I have read on your site that you may be willing to provide us with a new direction to visiting NYC."
This family is from an area which I have no interest in visiting, as they state in the first sentence of their email to me. I write a blog to help people become better exchangers, but that's not how I allocate my vacation time. I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in swapping with someone just to let them try out home exchange. But I will share this tip: if you just want to do home exchange to save money, don't bother. And if you want home exchangers to be interested in swapping with you tell them why they should be. Use your hook or a hotel you'll book.
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