Can I just comment that the word is "swap", and not "swop".
We have a few friends in home exchanges ... they have stayed in quite a few places where the other owners have not yet found themselves in suburban Vancouver in return. Each operation presumably has its own rules.
According to the Cambridge dictionary swop is absolutely correct
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/swop
Maybe Aussies prefer swap?
Fair enough about each organisation having its own rules and each probably has its variants, but at least I'm talking from personal experience.
I don't think "swop" is or ever has been correct anywhere to mean "exchange" ... but no matter, no need for anyone to die in a ditch over it.
I completely accept that Australian English is not the same as ours. If you want to use swap, I still understand you and have not commented, unlike you.
Here, there is no such thing as a house exchange, it is always referred to as a house swop. I think you'll find that house exchange is another Americanism adopted by Australians.
Jingili is on the right track - I have friends who have been house swapping for years - as Jingilli says you build a credit; not always practical to do real time swap. My friends just move in with one of our friends place for a week when people from overseas what to do swap to their house. Same when they have gone overseas, often the person they are swapping to away on holiday somewhere or just do as my friends ie go to some mates place for the week.
SWOP ... Sex Worker Outreach Program ... and an incorrect spelling for swap.
This isn't controversial or debatable I'm afraid ... swop is erroneous.
Looked this up on the Cambridge Dictionary - says 'swop' is "mainly UK for swap verb". Personally I've never seen the word swop before so I've learned something new. It would be fair to say in UK you could use swop or swap - both being correct, outside UK only swap seems to be acceptable. -- I'm now going to research the connection between sex workers outreach and house swapping, maybe a whole new area of travel accommodation :-) :-)
It is obvious that Australians do it differently. What you describe is unheard of here.
And technically if people move out somewhere else for a week or two, it is therefore not a swop/swap. A swop/swap is exchanging one thing for another - like marbles, for example. It is more on the lines of an exchange as you said, or a data base of available houses for people to stay in for free.
The one we've done, was a straight swop/swap and the one we're doing (with Australians) is also a straight swop.
I can't find any citations of its use in literature at all ... a fair indication of its unlikelihood as a fair dinkum alternative to "swap", or its extreme rarity. Even in Australia it's sometimes seen as a kind of portmanteau used in conjunction with "shop", so "Swop Shop", but that's about the limit.
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Some people do have difficulty accepting that life is not always as they would have everybody else believe it to be Bella
" https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/swop " is very first cab of the rank depending on what you search for.
Meanwhile, all a bit of a fizzer, just not because of it possibly raining for the OP is looking at the possibility of a House Sit!