I have been using THS for about a decade now. Overall I have been very happy with my experience here. While I don’t agree with the 5 app rule mentioned, if there is any truth to the idea that it has helped more sitters get sits and more homeowners get sitters, I can’t see them changing a policy that contributes to more members getting what they actually paid for.
If I am honest, practically it has not affected me negatively. But as a full-time sitter who is open to lots of different locations, I may see more opportunity than someone who is just looking almost exclusively for sits in one highly popular area like London. Last year, we did 7 international sits over a period of 8 months, all in highly desirable locations–Prague, a very central area of London, the Turkish Mediterranean, a Greek island, a Thai island and two major cities in Vietnam and Korea.
Next month I am headed to Costa Rica for a 2.5 month sit and hope to find some more sits in the region, but if I don’t I’ll just go back to the US and hang around there for a bit until peak summer travel season passes and flights go down.
I have actually seen a number in the feed that fit my dates, but chose not to apply for one reason or another–no matter how desirable the location or how well a sit would work for my schedule, I will not apply if there are issues I know would be a problem for me personally, like a house that appears to be of questionable cleanliness. The only exception would be a shorter sit to fill a gap perhaps.
One thing I have noticed when checking for sits specifically in this region over the last month or so: When looking at very recent listings I missed but are in 'review’status-- you can still see the dates at this point-- they almost never are a match for the dates I am looking for so I wouldn’t have applied anyway. I have noticed this with other areas I have kept an eye on at various points.
So again, for me personally, I don’t feel I have missed out on a significant number of desirable opportunities, and any negative feelings I have toward this ‘rule’ is due more to principle than truly being affected. And if there were any sits that I would have loved and I totally missed them, I figure I wasn’t meant to do it.
Another observation I have made is that many of these ‘popular’ listings often get posted at least a few more times so in many instances, a lot more than 5 people get the chance to apply.
The thing about other sites is they only have a small fraction of listings compared to THS so any plan to substitute these sites for this one will leave you with even fewer options. Some exceptions may be some of those country-specific sites like Kiwihousesitters. They have a decent enough amount of listings that would probably allow someone to rely on it solely if that is the only place they wanted to do sits.