I mostly search in San Francisco County. Very, very helpful versus search for City.
1 Like
Could the first part of post code or whatever be required by HO? Enough to know the area without the actual road?
NYC in the house. Some areas in the boroughs can be very remote and aren’t always very accessible by mass transit. Some places, especially in Queens might be a quicker commute on the LIRR than on the subway. There are burbs and there are burbs. You should probably consider Hoboken and the parts of Jersey City accessible by ferry and PATH in addition to the boroughs. There are aslo some lower Westchester towns where MetroNorth can get you into midtown quicker than the subway from some Brooklyn neighborhoods. Of course having the houses accurately mapped would make this less of a mystery!
3 Likes
Something I going to remember to ask when I’m setting up the sits, before I confirm and get their address. I knew there was a system default to a city region, but until this chat I would not have asked for specifics. Thanks every one for the heads up
1 Like
Try being from NYC. Everyone in the states of NY and NJ posts their listing as “New York City.” It’s a clickbait tactic. Rope them into reading the listing by claiming to be in New York City, then once you have their attention, admit to actually being in New Jersey, Long Island, Westchester, etc… just a short 30-minute (expensive) train ride to NYC!! Same goes for London. I wish I had a dollar for every “London” listing that turned out to be in Kent, Essex, Surrey, Middlesex, etc.
BTW, I freaking love Rosslyn, so I’m far more likely to click on that than DC! The best sit I ever did was in Rosslyn, and I am glad the HO was honest about their exact location because that’s what pulled me in. But yeah, seeing all these MD sits claiming to be DC is really annoying. Are they so ashamed of where they live that they think they have to lie about it to get people to read the listing? How silly. You just never know who you’re losing out on by doing that. As evidenced by my personal preference for Rosslyn, lol.
1 Like
I don’t think folks are ashamed of where they live. More like their town, city or village might not be well known enough to trigger any recognition. As a fan of the U.K., for instance, I’d find it helpful if there was a quick way to see how close various sits are to places I recognize by name, rather than stopping to look up each one. But it’s also helpful to be specific in the description for someone to say it’s X miles from London, Cambridge or whatever.
I don’t host, but say if I’m traveling and someone asks where I’m from, I’ll tell them the major city I live outside of, because they’re more likely to find that informative.
1 Like
I meant that if that’s the reason, it would be silly. There will always be someone who wants to sit wherever you are. As a New Yorker, I’ve known a lot of people who think it’s “cooler” to say they live in NYC than New Jersey, but then get caught out when asked what part of NYC they live in. Just say where you live!! Certainly not another state entirely.
The listing should specify the exact location. If you don’t have a London (directional) postcode, don’t put your location as London. Put where you actually are, then describe the proximity to London in the listing.
3 Likes
This really is getting frustrating. It’s a real time waster, having to click on every listing and read through to find out where they actually are. Instead of choosing from a dropdown menu, perhaps have them manually enter their specific town in the space shown in the search results? (A lot of people don’t even seem to know much about where they live, and choose “City of London,” despite the fact that this is a very specific area, not just a synonym for “anywhere in the vicinity of London.”)
I’m sure your place in Kent that’s “only” a 40-minute train ride to London Bridge is lovely, but it’s not in London. Your flat in Walthamstow or Peckham or Ealing isn’t in Central London. You’re not helping anyone by being misleading. Clickbait is frustrating no matter where it’s found, and makes you seem deceptive. Not someone I’d trust to be honest about anything else, if you’re even being shady about where you’re located.
There has to be a better way than this, THS.
2 Likes
I looked for a sit in Lymington UK yesterday (to track some old pals down) & THS offered me Salisbury, Ryde, most of Wiltshire, Andover, Southsea, Winchester, Dorset and so on. If I ask for Lymington then show me Lymington. It’s specific. Maybe 20 mins drive from there like Milford On Sea. Total waste of time and couldn’t find the friends either as too much dross to wade through. Exactly @LIQ - come on THS!! #uselesssearchfunction
1 Like
and that is why I say… “can I have your physical address so I organise travel insurance and notify relatives where I will be”. Kills 2 birds with 1 stone. Then I can either accept sit or not.
4 Likes
The search seemed completely off, yesterday, when I used the app. An enormous area!
I ask for their address in the first call before agreeing to the sit because yes HO’s are doing this to pull sitters in because they aren’t getting sitters because their location is not desirable.
2 Likes
I did a particular search where I chose “London, United Kingdom.” Out of 40 results, only 3 of them were actually in London.
They shouldn’t let HOs lie/mislead about their location. I’m sure THS has their actual address, so it shouldn’t be hard to assign a location to the listing that matches up to their address or at least postcode (that’s actually very easy to incorporate into a website). This way we wouldn’t have to individually click on pages and pages’ worth of listings that claim to be in a place they’re not.
1 Like
Yeah, and it’s always fun to see “New York, NY” or “New York City” on a listing, and find out that it’s in New Jersey. JUST SAY NEW JERSEY. IT’S WHERE YOU ARE. If you really feel the need to tout your proximity to another state entirely for some odd reason, mention it in the listing. DON’T list it as your actual location. That is deceptive.
1 Like
Funny. That reminds me of a home we were selling in the Bay Area. The listing agent wrote a blurb that said we were minutes from San Francisco. It was separated by a bridge and I noted that the only way it would be minutes away were if you involved a helicopter or teleportation. I made him change the blurb. He was annoyed.
1 Like
But here’s the thing LIQ. A friend of ours in Fort Lee NJ, which I used to be able to see from my apartment until a certain university built a whole new north campus, recently moved to Philadelphia. I don’t think of him as having left NJ, I think of him as having left “the city” in some larger sense. Many places like Fort Lee, and certainly the PATH parts of Hoboken and Jersey City, feel no more distant from Manhattan than many areas in Brooklyn and Queens. In fact from the westside of Manhattan, they’re closer. The listing might come up on THS, not because people are lying, but because the system will look for “near” matches. There should simply be an accurate map that would roughly show where someone is actually located as there is on Airbnb. That way a sitter could simply compare that with an actual google map, and figure out whether the public transit options made it a “close enough” match.
Yes, @Marion and @LIQ , I had a sit in Weehawken, NJ that was a 10 minute bus ride from the Port Authority and the buses ran frequently. It was a much quicker trip to Midtown Manhattan than it would have been from some parts of Manhattan and the other boroughs.
1 Like
I don’t care how distant or near someone “feels” to a place. If they’re not in that place, they shouldn’t say they are. If one lives in New Jersey, the THS system certainly has the option to choose one’s location as New Jersey. Nothing to do with the map, but when I scroll through listings and the photo says “New York City” under it, that’s where the HO should be located. Not New Jersey, not Long Island, not Yonkers. A good indication of whether or not you should put your location as NYC: Is your address eligible to vote in the mayoral election?
And while Philadelphia (as an example) might only be 90 minutes from NYC, it isn’t NYC and no one should claim it is, just to draw sitters who might not otherwise be interested in their sit. If you’re in Maryland or Virginia, don’t put Washington DC as your location. Say where you actually, physically are, then in the listing itself talk about the proximity to other places. Don’t say you ARE at those places.
I just don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask that a HO’s location be accurate. I’m expected to accurately represent myself as a sitter. Even down to submitting to a background check to make sure I’m being honest about myself. So why can’t HO’s at least be honest about where they are? It should be a basic requirement.
2 Likes
But did the listing say New York City or Weehawken, NJ? That is what I’m talking about. Not distance to a place. Arlington, VA is close to Washington DC. But it’s not Washington DC, and the listing shouldn’t say it is. I might look 10 years younger than I am, but to claim to be is a lie.
2 Likes
@Marion My understanding is that Owners actually choose where to place a pin on the map. If they live in Newark, NJ, for example, they should choose the Newark, NJ pin, but they have the option of choosing the NYC pin.
I don’t know why THS does not change this, but so far, they haven’t, despite all of our complaints.
1 Like