On Swapping Homes

With reference to Jerry Hulse’s April 20 article on house swapping, I suggest that anyone wishing to use an agency like Vacation Exchange work on an exchange a year ahead. The first catalogue doesn’t come out until January, making it necessary to really scramble around for an exchange.

We didn’t feel our house was irresistible (no pool, and a cat to feed) and felt that having a jump on other exchangers would help us. We arranged five exchanges in six years, all very satisfactory. We wrote only to people who seemed to be in a similar economic bracket and whose family composition was the same as ours, and whose exchange periods weren’t too rigid to preclude their wanting an exchange for the following year.

KATHARINE McCORMACK

Tarzana