Housesitting 101

What is Housesitting?

Thousands of people around the world have purchased homes and at some point they find that they don’t want to live in their home but they aren’t quite ready to sell it and either aren’t able to rent it or don’t want to rent it. Some are retirees that spend six months of the year visiting warmer climates in an RV and the rest of their time is at their “home”. Most folks would rather have someone living in their home than board it up. Others have a home on the market to be sold and know that it has a much better chance of selling if someone is actively living in it and keeping up with the house.

Off grid Mexico estate
Our housesitting gig in early 2019: Off-Grid Ranch in Baja, Mexico

How Do I Find Housesitting Gigs?

Build Your Housesitting Portfolio

If you are serious about housesitting, the first step should be to build your portfolio of references from people that you have housesitted for in the past. Most strangers on the street aren’t going to let someone they don’t know into their home for any period of time. However, if you had a list of credible references, your chances of being selected to house sit increase tremendously.

Offer to housesit for family or close friends when they go on vacation. Do an excellent job, let them know that you would love to housesit for them again, and ask if you can use them as a reference for future housesitting gigs. Now you can maintain a “resume” of your housesitting experience and use it as a bargaining chip with potential clients.

Create an Online Presence

The next step is likely the most important, creating an online presence. This can be different depending on the part of the world you wish to housesit in, but at minimum you should create a profile on a housesitting websites such as Trusted House Sitters and/or Luxury House Sitting.

Similar to filling out a job application, create a profile that is inviting and appealing to the particular type of assignment that you are interested in. Your profile photo should be high-quality, up to date, and accurate to your appearance as well as inviting. Don’t use a mug-shot as your profile photo on a housesitting website. Have someone proofread your profile for grammatical errors and try to be as professional as possible.

Remember that in a digital age, your online footprint means as much as your reputation did in 1950’s small town America. As soon as a potential client sees your name as an interested house-sitter, they will likely scour your social media and web presence to help determine if you are a credible applicant. The obvious solution to this predicament is to maintain social media as a decent human being and don’t post hateful, rude, racist, or overly political content. A less obvious way to avoid missing out on houses because of your meme addiction is to set your social media accounts to private.

Insider Tip Perform a “web audit” of yourself every 6 months or so to insure that you have a spotless web identity. If you do find something negative or defamatory, make steps to have it removed. 

Provide a Quality Service

Like any industry, it doesn’t matter if you land the biggest client of your life if you can’t deliver a high-quality product. Once you get a housesitting gig, no matter the size, do the best job possible. Oftentimes going above and beyond your responsibilities as a house-sitter can yield glowing reviews online and excellent recommendations when someone calls. Similar to the rest of life, being excellent at what you do will net rewards continually over time.

Standard Duties of a House-sitter

The duties required in your housesitting agreement (yes, you need to sign a housesitting agreement) can vary depending on the geographic location of the house, the style of property (ranch, condo, apartment, etc.) and the reason that the owner requires a house-sitter. If the owner needs a house-sitter to make the home look inhabited, it’s probably best if you know how many hours per day you should be around the house.

In our 2019 housesitting agreement we signed on to live at an off-grid ranch in the remote mountains of Baja Norte, Mexico. We were interested in this assignment because it’s in Baja and because we are extremely interested in living off-grid someday and this was a perfect way to try that lifestyle without a huge commitment. Our duties at the ranch included the following:

  • Cleaning the main house and income property and preparing the income property with linens, supplies and a warm welcome if someone were staying.
  • Tending to the flower beds, gardens, and fruit trees on the property.
  • Feeding the dog, Pepita!
  • Monitoring the off-grid systems like satellite internet, solar power, and water.

Your responsibilities at a house might be very different and may include things like walking a dog or washing windows or dusting furniture. There is no right or wrong set of responsibilities as long as you are getting as much value out of the arrangement as the home owner. If you are staying in a 10’ x 10’ room with no windows and the owner of the house has you painting the exterior, reflooring the living room, and building on a garage, you have made a mistake. Remember that the home owner is seeking a housesitter for reason. 


A House-sitter signs a Housesitting Agreement

A written document agreed upon between the owner or manager of the home and the house-sitter is vital to a mutually beneficial arrangement. This document should be signed and dated by both parties and outline the term of the arrangement, responsibilities of the house-sitter, any compensation involved, and how to handle expenses paid out of pocket by the house-sitter. 
Final Tips for Housesitting
To sum up our experiences looking for housesitting jobs and apply for many, the golden rule applies as much to housesitting as it does to the rest of our lives. Treat other people’s homes how you would want someone to treat your home and be the applicant that you would hire if you were looking for a housesitter. Happy hunting and let us know if any of our tips helped you land a gig!

A written document agreed upon between the owner or manager of the home and the house-sitter is vital to a mutually beneficial arrangement. This document should be signed and dated by both parties and outline the term of the arrangement, responsibilities of the house-sitter, any compensation involved, and how to handle expenses paid out of pocket by the house-sitter. 

Final Tips for Housesitting

To sum up our experiences looking for housesitting jobs and apply for many, the golden rule applies as much to housesitting as it does to the rest of our lives. Treat other people’s homes how you would want someone to treat your home and be the applicant that you would hire if you were looking for a housesitter. Happy hunting and let us know if any of our tips helped you land a gig!

As always, thank you for reading along on our travels and adventures. Hopefully you were entertained, enlightened, or otherwise felt like the last few minutes reading this post was a worthwhile investment of your time. If you enjoyed our content, there are a few ways that you can help promote what we do and keep us on the road a little longer:

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Over Prepared and Underprepared: How Both Can Keep You From Exploring

Hammock Camp Buffalo River Arkansas

By: Ethan Hayman

Whether you choose to explore the world around you by motor vehicle, bicycle, or by foot there is a fine line between wandering dangerously into the unknown with no preparation, being safely prepared for the adventure ahead, and being paralyzed by the insecurity of not having every piece of equipment you can imagine. If your goal is to explore the world and to be able to do so for a long time there are certain items and skills that will be necessities and others that can simply keep you from exploring at all. The most important question to ask is, do you want to sit around and wait for the stars to align, or do you want to plunge head first into the unknown and seize every opportunity for adventure?

The first multi day backpacking trip I ever did definitely fell on the less prepared end of the spectrum. Three of my best friends and I had planned out a five day fifty mile plus trek through the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri. Combined, we had very little experience and almost no proper gear suited to the task at hand. Those of us with some cash to spend invested in various items of the outdoors persuasion, and do we ever look back and laugh at those choices. Some items were solid selections. I purchased a pair of Vasque hiking boots which have now been worn for four years, gone hundreds of miles, summited peaks in Colorado, traversed the Grand Canyon, and waded through the Buffalo National River. I also bought a Fiskars chopping axe which weighed over five pounds and was proudly strapped to the outside of my pack to be carried fifty miles and was necessary approximately zero times. One friend opted to spend no money and wore old sneakers, military fatigues (in navy digital camouflage), and borrowed an ancient external frame backpack.

To keep a long story short, we got absolutely destroyed within two days of being on the trail. Five inches of rain fell the morning we were supposed to set off, turning our path into a tiny flowing river and making every step treacherous. The forecast also changed drastically from when we packed up and when we arrived leaving us expecting mild weather. Instead we woke up to snow falling the second morning. It was at this point that our spirits were broken and we decided to detour to a nearby state park and call for a very expensive shuttle ride back to our vehicle. Many experienced backpackers have told us we were foolish for going out with the equipment and lack of experience we had. We certainly felt foolish and were lucky that no serious injuries occured, communications were maintained, and there were options to bail out. To add to the point here, two of us attempted a return trip at the opposite time of the year with a different group and experienced one hundred degree temperatures and drought causing the expedition to throw in the towel at the exact same location as on the first attempt. All that being said, I am so thankful that I experienced both of those trips and would absolutely not trade the memories for anything. We learned a great deal about ourselves, our equipment, and our passion the hard way. And sometimes that’s the best way.

Since these experiences, many more lessons have been learned and many thousands of miles have been successfully traversed by foot, car, and bicycle. As I gain more experience and begin to slowly accumulate better, more useful equipment I find that sometimes I am held back by this desire to have all the right gear before setting off on the next adventure. Some of the hesitation is warranted, lack of potable water on our second trip to the MTNF could have been a fatal mistake, but I will probably be ok on every trip without a solar panel, 50” LED light bar or even steel bumpers on my expedition rig. While all of these can make certain situations easier, safer or simply more convenient the lack of them should never keep you from exploring the world around you.

As long as you have the basics covered, water/food, communications, first aid, navigation, and shelter I say go out and find something amazing in the world around you. Waiting until you have every tool and gadget will keep you from ever seeing the world and being totally unprepared could end your grand adventure we call life, but with minimal expense, basic gear and careful planning you should be all set to get out there and safely venture into the unknown.

JK Jeep Offroad Overlanding

Today’s post was written by Ethan Hayman. Ethan is a hiker, wood-worker, and general outdoorsman. Ethan’s adventures take him all over the South Central United States including Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, New Mexico, and Arizona. Follow him on Facebook to keep up with his shenanagins

If you would like to contribute to the blog, submit your short stories or articles to okienomads@gmail.com. As always, check out our social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

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