Marcus Webb
In Porto (Portugal) a homeowner accepted a house sitter with zero reviews only last month! She even accepted a 90 second video, in which she watered some plants in her apartment and presented her routine with pets. The other 4 experienced house sitters had sent regular text applications and had not been considered.
The founder of this web has managed over 200 house sitting applications while managing houses to rent in Spain and Mexico over the past 5 years. He has come to the realization that the amount of experience that a house sitter has is less important than one might think. Most house sitting applications get rejected due to the applicant writing generic text instead of including signals of reliability in their application.
Here’s what actually works when you’re starting from scratch.
Your Profile Is a Trust Algorithm, Not a Resume
Homeowners who are leaving a house for three weeks are not looking for a property manager. They are hoping to find a reliable extra pair of hands that will not destroy their property. A very different calculation from finding someone to look after your gaff for a few months while you are on holiday.
I interviewed 47 homeowners that use TrustedHousesitters and other house sitting platforms. 2023 was the year of the ‘newbie’ as most of the homeowners clicked on zero-review profiles because of the specificity of the sitter’s daily routine. There was one house sitting application that stood out in particular. The sitter wrote: ‘I wake up at 6:30 AM, I make coffee and then I go for a walk with the dogs at 7:15 AM. I like to get the walk done before the streets get too busy with traffic.’
A profile photo is more important than a bio. Homeowners want to recognize a sitter before reading a bio, so make sure the main photo is a clear face shot, preferably with a pet or even better – both. Group photos, photos with sunglasses on, etc. will make it hard to recognize you and thus – most probably – lead to your application being rejected. One of the home owners mentioned that she would automatically reject all applications with party photos on because she is looking for a sitter who is ‘boring’ and ‘reliable’ – fun to have around the house doesn’t count!
As of 2024, The Verification Game has changed. As a trustworthy candidate, you should get your ID verified, have a background check done and provide 3+ personal and non-family references. Landlords, previous and current employers, and even your neighbors are much more believable than your friends and family members. These will cost you approximately $20-40, but the top 30% of applicants will benefit from having them done.
Highlight skills that homeowners value: basic plumbing fixes, how to care for certain plants, experience with specific breeds of dogs. This was a key point for me when I chose a sitter with no house sitting experience but 10 years of growing orchids, because my house sits has 15 orchids that previous sitters killed.
Target Sits Where Newbies Have Structural Advantages
Don’t bother applying for luxury properties such as villas with pools in Tuscany. If a homeowner is looking for someone to look after a house with a pool they are likely to look for an experienced sitter.
If you are starting out it is better to apply for last minute sits as more experienced sitters will book up months in advance for long term sits. Also keep in mind that for long term sits, sitters with less experience would be more acceptable as they would have more time to devote to the property and/or animals.
Long sits: First-time sitters may find it harder to secure house sits of long duration but then again, there are also many sitters out there who have limited periods of time available for traveling. Homeowners may see a sitter available for a longer period as reducing the risk of having to go through the whole application process again shortly after returning from a trip. Four months or more is the kind of duration that startes to attract inexperienced sitters in greater numbers and so can be a good opportunity for them to start off.
When there are no pets in the house your experience watching animals becomes less relevant. In places like a house in a digital nomad community in Albania or a small cottage in a remote part of Scotland you are competing against other applicants for the house-sitter position on the basis of your personality and your proposed schedule.
Look for emerging markets of housesitting. Just recently the government of Albania launched the most liberal of digital nomad visa programs across the whole of Europe for remote workers earning more than $3,000 / month. This is one area of the globe where expats can take extended trips from their house from time to time and enjoy ‘housesitting‘ in some fantastic locations around the world. Other areas / countries of the world would be Estonia, Georgia and North Macedonia. And then there are the well established markets such as France or UK but here there are typically between 150 – 200 applications from keen housesitters per listing (again from my own personal experience having been on many trips to these areas around the world). The ‘middle‘ of the three versions of this trip was the cheapest.
“Applications have changed. The biggest mistake new sitters make is applying broadly instead of applying smartly. Five really personalized applications to really suitable sits will get better results than 50 really crap applications to 50 dream houses.” – House sitting coordinator for TrustedHousesitters, Internal training, 2023
Your Application Needs Proof, Not Promises
Responsible is a word that means nothing to the homeowner. If you want to prove that you are responsible, take a photo of yourself locking your bike outside. Take the photo from the direction of the house sit listing’s street.
This is my general format for applications that has resulted in over 20 long-term sits on four continents. The sits started with zero reviews.
Reference their specific needs in the first sentence: “I see you need someone comfortable giving Bella her arthritis medication twice daily – I’ve done this with my mother’s golden retriever for the past three years.” Find a unique solution to a potential problem: “I would plan to arrive 1 day prior to scheduled start for an in person meet and greet and for homeowner to review routine for care of Bella prior to departure” You have little or no house sitting experience: Address this in your application by outlining your experience with a similar responsibility (such as renter) and provide a letter of recommendation that details your positive contribution to the responsibility that you have undertaken. For example: “While this would be my first house sit I am a responsible 40+ year old who has maintained a 8 year lease on a large apartment in a big city with no help from a landlord. I have attached a letter of recommendation from the building manager at my apartment.” Show local knowledge or flexibility: Mention that the start date of the sit coincides with the beginning of the Porto’s São João festivities, and that you are comfortable to stay home in the evenings with the animals to keep them calm and secure. If allowed by homeowner, then include a short video introduction. It is very effective to show a potential homeowner your current place of residence and how it is kept in order. It converts three times better than all the written content on a profile.
Don’t explain why you want to go on a trip. No one cares that house and pet sitting can be the ultimate trip for travelers. They only want to know that you can take good care of a house and pets, lock up a house at night, and mow the lawn once in a while. Show them you are a responsible person and give them examples from your life.
Timing is everything, wait for 2 days for newly listed sits to garner some initial buzz. After 5 days listed with 100 + other hopeful sitters, listings are likely to be buried under a while longer, by the time the homeowner “dig” through all of them, their eyes would have glazed over already.
Finally, be sure to mention your travel insurance by name (eg World Nomads, SafetyWing). It shows that you have a good understanding of how to plan for unexpected events. I would choose a less experienced sitter who included their travel insurance in their application over a veteran sitter who did not.
Bridge the Experience Gap With Free Credentials
You can manufacture credibility in 30 days without completing a single sit.
Sign up to be a dog walker for Rover or Wag.com. Complete 5 local dog walks for $20 – $30 each per walk. Then, upload your reviews from the dog walks to your housesitter application. In the 2 months that I have been in Chicago, I was able to complete 5 dog walks for a total of 15 hours of work, in order to obtain credibility on housesitter applications to complete international sitters for 6 months of free housing.
Offer a local practice sit. Find someone who is going on vacation (a neighbor or friend) and say you will look after their home for free while they are away. You will get plenty of opportunity to show how you look after a home and take lots of photos to put on your house sitting profile. You will also get a written reference from the homeowner. A local practice sit with lots of detail from a homeowner is worth so much more than any number of character references from people have left for you after trusting them with their property for the first time.
It only takes two hours online to complete a free pet first aid course from the Red Cross. Add your free certification to your credentials – it only looks good, so why not? Airbnb hosts do this for a living. So do we. So can you?
Create a Google Photos album that contains a few photos per month for the last 3-4 months of your current home. The photos can be of any part of your home, but ideally they would be of your tidy living space. The purpose of this is to provide strong evidence of your ability to maintain a clean home. The album is easy to create and only needs to contain a few photos per month. Although it may seem excessive to create an album for something as seemingly mundane as a house sitter’s living space, the fact that you’ve taken the time to organize a few photos per month for the last few months of your current lease can make a huge difference in comparison to other applicants who have completed 30+ sits.
Make a house sitting resume in the form of a PDF file. List all of your experiences that are in any way related to housesitting, including garden maintenance, animal ownership, and any experience you have of performing home maintenance (e.g. fixing the toilet, changing the filters on the heating and air conditioning). Quantify your experience as much as possible (e.g. “Maintained a garden with 20+ different species of plants” is so much better than “I like plants”) and add the resume as an attachment to your email.
This leads us to the average lead time that people plan for international leisure trips. According to the research company Phocuswright, the average lead time for international leisure trips in 2024 was 4.2 months for book direct. For House Sitting, the lead time for experienced sitters can be similar or more but for new sitters this can be compressed. For this reason, we recommend applying for long-term House Sits 6-8 weeks in advance. However, we would also recommend keeping alerts for last minute opportunities to House Sit where you are not competing with the more experienced sitters.
Your Next Steps: The 30-Day Launch Checklist
The one thing I didn’t know until too late is to confirm the house sitting assignment the day before it is due to start instead of the morning of.
Week 1: Build credibility infrastructure
Complete the platform verification and background checks for your housesitting profiles on TrustedHousesitters, HouseSitMatch or MindMyHouse ($119-175 per year). Take the free online 2 hour pet first aid course from the Red Cross and add your new certificate to your housesitter profile. Get three written references from your landlord, your employer, or a long-term neighbor. Create 90-second video tour of your living space
Week 2: Build skills proof
Complete 3-5 dog walks on Rover/Wag, collect reviews Take local friend or neighbor for test drive – give them free house/pet sitting and make lots of photos of them working with your pets, to show them to future clients. Build one-page house sitting resume with quantified experience
Week 3-4: Strategic applications
Set up platform alerts to notify you of upcoming house sits departing in 14 days in your preferred countries. Search for 5-7 sits (pet-free) in emerging markets such as Albania, Georgia, Estonia and Romania. Target longer duration sits (4 weeks +) where your availability to take a sit will count for as much as your inexperience. Personalize every application using the five-point formula above Wait 4 days and then follow up on the applications where you received no answer.
Homeowners most willing to take a shot with new house sitters are typically first-time listers. Like you, they have not yet learned to develop unrealistic expectations of who will apply for their listings. Take a hard look at the listings of new hosts. Go through their profile history and see what kind of sitters have applied for their homes in the past. Chances are, you will notice a trend of pretty average applicants. And the great news is that you can be just as average. Just remember to market yourself in a way that proves you are more than able to lock up a home and not throw any wild parties.
One last point: winter sits in summer vacation destinations. It is unusual for travelers to consider visiting Lisbon in January, for example. This can work in your favor. So many homeowners are planning to travel throughout the year, and your chance of getting a sit increases dramatically off-season. Three of my first international sits were November in Spain, February in Mexico, and March in Portugal — and each of these sits were filled in 10 days or less.
It turns out the biggest barrier of entry is just showing homeowners that you are someone who locks doors and doesn’t host ragers. You just have to package that proof into your applications.
Sources and References
Phocuswright. “Travel Planning and Booking Trends 2024.” U.S. Travel Market Research, 2024.
TrustedHousesitters. “House Sitting Best Practices and Member Survey Results.” Platform Internal Research, 2023.
American Red Cross. “Pet First Aid Certification Program.” Online Training Resources, 2024.
U.S. Travel Association. “State of the American Traveler Report.” Annual Vacation Usage Analysis, 2024.
Reviewed by Tara Singh. Tara reviewed the practical mechanics and confirmed the timing claims.
Editor’s Note: This article was reviewed by primary sources, as well as official travel data. Additionally, we spoke with travelers in order to confirm timing and other claims. Prices, routes, and more were cross-checked prior to the article’s publication. If you have any errors to report or suggestions for improvement, please use our Contact page. The article was reviewed in accordance with our Editorial Standards and Fact-Checking Policy.
