Home-swap holiday website Love Home Swap has worked on new features in order to “build community of swappers and confidence in swapping”.

The company recently launched a Facebook Connect feature that enables members to connect with Facebook friends, and friends of friends, to view listed properties. Now, Facebook Connect is complemented by the launch of a fully transactional Love Home Swap Facebook app and dedicated Trust Centre.

The Facebook app, which live-streams activity through relevant feeds and status updates, will amplify Love Home Swap’s presence across Facebook and enable newcomers to discover more about home-swapping and browse properties. Existing members will benefit from the app’s seamless delivery of the Love Home Swap service via Facebook. 

The company has also roll out of a dedicated Trust Centre  that helps users to find out more about the company’s properties and swappers and includes a star-badge rating system to identify the `most trusted’ swappers.

Love Home Swap users can now search properties based on a swapper’s response rate, testimonials added or received and their Facebook Connect status.

Love Home Swap recently announced its $1.3 million backing by investment firm MMC Ventures.

In the UK alone, over 3.2 million people are planning a home-swap holiday in 2012 – that’s twice as many as in 2011, according to the company.

Love Home Swap’s chief marketing officer, Ben Wosskow, sees social sophistication as key to turning the growing trend into a mainstream travel choice. He said: “Quality and trust are essential parts of any successful collaborative model and both our Facebook project and Trust Centre put us at the forefront of our sector and the social travel sphere.”

“What we are doing socially and via our Trust Centre means we can deliver the most positive, intuitive and confident home-swap holidays possible, and a truly collaborative and contemporary travel choice,” said Wosskow.