Home exchange guide, Your Listing

Check your listing pictures

Have you noticed your listing pictures are now shown bigger?

The increase in size makes your house listing look nicer, but you have to have photos to match!

Quality photos

Because of this change in the size your pictures are presented, we would like you to check your pictures and see if their quality is good enough. What do we mean by quality? Well, photos are made up tiny pixels per inch, and the more pixels your source image has, the better quality it has and the better it will look on the website for your potential exchange partners.

Use photos that are 1024 pixels wide or more but not bigger than 10MB each. Have a look at our other article on photos if you want more info on how to get your image belçow 10 MB.

If necessary, upload another version your pictures or even take new pictures.

 

Taking new photos

In case you decide to take new pictures, we have some tips from the Intervac Home Exchange team.

Here is how to make new good quality house photos:

  • Take photos which are sharp and in focus
    Use a tripod and set the self-timer for sharper photos with more detail.
  • Fill the room with light before taking a photo
    Open all the blinds and turn on all the lights. Take a few different photos in each room to make sure that you have captured it in the best light.
  • Make sure the rooms are clean
    Tidy and uncluttered spaces are so much more appealing!
  • Highlight the home’s best features – and number of beds
    Try to shoot a realistic overview of the whole property, inside and outside. Make sure you include all beds, even pull-out beds your exchange partners might use.
  • Try to capture the entire room
    If you are able to capture more of the room, there will be a greater sense of space.
  • Take photos from a lower perspective
    This way you will get the best angle to display the size and layout of your home.
  • Don’t forget to shoot photos in all seasons
    This is especially true if your house has any kind of outside space or view, but it can also be relevant if you have a specific feature, such as a fireplace.

And some extra tips in a video from Reader’s Digest:

 

Copyright issues

Don’t forget to publish only pictures for which there are no copyright issues. If you found that image on Google, have a look at this article before publishing it on your Intervac listing.

 

 

Home exchange guide, Your Listing

How do I change the information on my family?

You Intervac listing has the information on both your house and your family.

Here is how you can change the information on your family so that everything is up-to-date.

  1. Login to your Intervac account.
  2. In the member navigation, scroll down to the section Change my listing
  3. Click on Family photos and texts and scroll down to Adults and Occupations or Children.

Home exchange guide, Your Listing

All about your listing’s photos

Pictures are a very important part of your Intervac listing. They show what your home and neighborhood is like and they present your family to our Intervac community.

There are 4 categories of photos in your listing:

  1. Home
  2. Neighbourhood
  3. Family
  4. Lifestyle

All of these pictures show in your picture slideshow, following precisely that order: Home, Neighbourhood, Family, Lifestyle. If you have more than one listing, the photos in the Family and Lifestyle categories will show in all your listings.

 

Please note that when logged in you can view all the photos other members have on their slideshow. If you are not logged in, you will be considered as a Visitor (and not a Member) and for that reason only be able to view the ones selected by the member as Members & Visitors photos.

Adding more photos to your Intervac listing

Adding more photos is a great way to provide more information to potential exchangers and increases the chances of you getting the home exchange you want.

To do this log in, and go to Member Home > My Listing > Change My Listing

Choose the category you want (Home, Family, Lifestyle or Neighbourhood)

You can add new photos by clicking the Upload photos button, you can add new pictures in the chosen category.

Please note photos need to be no bigger than 10MB. If your photo is bigger, we recommend that you use an online resizer tool to reduce its size to a maximum of 10MB (that is 10240 KB or less).

You can reorder the photos within the category by using the 4-headed arrow on the right and dragging the photo to where you want it.

If you click on Show to members only, the photo will be shown only to logged in members. If you click on Show to everyone, the photo will be shown to both members and visitors.

Member Questions

 How about the main photo?

The main photo has a blog post dedicated to it. Read all about how to handle the main photo of your listing.

How can I delete photos?

To delete photos, simply follow these instructions.

 How can I rotate photos?

To rotate photos that appear sideways or even upside down, follow these instructions.

 Where did my neighborhood photos go?

All your photos show in your picture slideshow They appear in the order of the categories you uploaded them in: Home, Neighbourhood, Family, Lifestyle.

  I see you have a caption on your main photo. How can I add one too?

Clicking the Edit Caption link will open this little dialog. Just type in the text you want for your caption but keep it under 128 characters. That’s the limit.

Home exchange guide, Your Listing

How to delete your photos

You know your listing looks much better with photos and the odds of getting that exchange you are looking for greatly increase. But maybe you want to delete some of your photos to upload new ones, more up-to-date.

Note: If you are considering deleting your photos because they are upside down or rotate, you don’t need to delete them. See here how to rotate your photos.

Deleting photos step-by-step

1 – Log in to your account and click on Change my listing

2 – Click on Home Photos & Texts

3 – Next to each photo you will find an icon to delete it (as shown in the screenshot below)

4 – Repeat for as many photos as you wish to delete

5 – Repeat also in the sections

Deleting the main photo

 You cannot delete the main photo. You can replace it with a new photo you upload or with one of your other photos. If you don’t want to have a photo of your house, you can use a photo of your area taken from the Internet.
The instructions on how to change the main photo are here.
Finding an exchange partner, Home exchange guide

Past Members – more exchange opportunities

When browsing the listings of Intervac members, you might have come across some that mention being Past Members. These members no longer have a current membership with Intervac.

You can tell it is a Past Member because it shows a yellow “traffic light” saying Past member.

 

What are the limitations for Past members?

An active member can contact a past member. The idea is to provide an extra exchanging opportunity for both parties.

However, Past members cannot start new conversations and their ability to reply is limited. They can only answer back with a standard Yes / Maybe / No response.

When receiving an exchange request from another member, the Past member has several options. He can renew his membership and proceed to an exchange agreement.

He can also choose to stop receiving these offers from other members.

How can I stop seeing Past members?

If you want to exclude Past members from your search, you simply have to activate the proper filter. Open the Preferences section of your filters and click on the checkbox Open for Exchange.

 

Home exchange guide, Your membership

How to Become a Platinum Member

Reaching the Platinum level at Intervac is, well, let’s be honest, mostly a lot of fun! Our platinum members have made at least 11 exchanges but we have some who are reaching for 100! Exchanges must be registered via our exchange agreement in order to update automatically.

What Do Those Badges Mean?

Very experienced house swappers having made 11 or more house swaps Platinum members have made more than 11 exchanges. Some of them way more than 11 exchanges. We have platinum members with over 100 exchanges behind them. Some have been Intervac members for many, many years.


Experienced house swappers with 6 - 10 exchanges Lucky us to have so many precious Gold members. They have all made between 6 and 10 exchanges. When you talk to them you’ll discover they are enthusiastic home exchangers and have plenty of great stories to tell.


Silver members have made 3 - 5 house swaps Silver members have usually been swapping their homes for a couple of years. They have experience (3 – 5 exchanges). They have made the kinds of friends and memories that happen with home exchange.


Bronze members have made 1 - 2 house swaps The Bronze members have a bit of experience now and know the ropes. With 1 or 2 exchanges they have some stories and probably still have some questions.


Beginning members who looking for their first house swap These members are brand new to home exchange and have never swapped their house before. They are Ready to go! We appreciate their trust in our members and encourage experienced members to help out by making offers to new members.

Home exchange guide, Your Listing

Your Home Exchange Dates

Your exchange dates are an important element of your listing. They help our search engine to match you with potential exchange partners so you’ll want to be sure to keep them current with all of the dates you when you want to exchange.

To accommodate members who offer their holiday homes as well as their everyday homes for exchange and also for our many members who enjoy non-simultaneous exchange, we have coupled exchange dates to your listing. You are able to specify separately when your holiday home and when your everyday home is available for exchange.

Once you understand this, it’s easy to remember how to change your exchange dates.


Getting There: Exchange Dates

  1. Login to your Intervac account.
  2. In the member navigation section My Listing click on Change my listing.
  3. From the Main settings page, click on Exchange information. Exchange Dates is the second section on that page.


Adding and Editing Exchange Dates

To edit existing exchange dates, you use the same form as the one for adding new dates.