Investor · Denver, CO · Member since 2015 · 570 posts · 521 votes
Anyone heard of using an investment property as a home share for international travel? Looking to take a year or two off and travel internationally extensively. Our personal home would not be a good candidate to use as a home trade where you trade a week at your house for a week at someone else's in another country.
Was thinking about buying a town home in a local resort town like Breckenridge or someplace else in the mountains and just using that. At then end of the 2 years I could either keep it and use it as a rental or just sell it likely for a quick profit. Economically what I'd be looking at is 2 years of free places to stay around the world as we traveled frequently.
Anybody ever heard of someone doing this? I'm just looking into this home trading thing so don't know too much about it.
Hi Mike, great question. I have several friends and real estate clients here who use "home swap" sites to trade homes around the world for their Breckenridge properties.
Most have their homes in a vacation rental program for much of the year and block out in advance the weeks when they wish to travel and swap.
Hey Mike - I think a property in Breckenridge would be a very attractive bargaining piece in this kind of arrangement. I have a rental there that is performing very well and I'm glad to share some insight into that market. Shoot me a PM sometime.
I usually don't suggest Breckenridge as a great place to buy a short term rental because the list prices don't usually support a short term/vacation rental that will cash flow. However, I think you have a great idea for using a Breckenridge are property as a home share carrot for international travelers like yourself. If you work with a management company to market and manage the home, it should be easy to carve out time for your home share guests, but if you don't leave enough opportunity for the management company to book the home, it can be a difficult relationship. The company I work with does have a significant presence in Breck. If interested in more info, contact me offline.
Anyone think it would be an issue doing a home swap with a home you aren't living in? Technically it wouldn't really be a 'home' swap, wonder if that would disqualify me. Has anybody done it before?