Hey! I’d love any tips on how to make my application stronger and improve my chances of getting accepted.
I’m looking for a house sit that’s at least a month long since I’ll be flying from San Francisco, so I want to make the trip worthwhile. My dates are pretty flexible, and I’m hoping to come over during the winter months (your summer, I think?).
For any Australian homeowners here, what makes someone stand out to you? What would make you feel comfortable choosing someone from the U.S.?
You need to develop a strong review history. It took me a while to get there and then the sits came rolling in, now with 2 negative reviews I’m back to square one and it’s not even my fault since the animals were not trained properly but what can you do.
You could try Aussie House Sitters site
We go to Australia in their summer months every year pretty much. Here’s our opinions/tips.
@BonnyinBrighton I get a that your experience of Australia is like this, but it is a large country and people are travelling at various times of the year depending on their circumstances and location. For example teaching staff have a large chunk of holidays during our summer months and may travel then. Southerners do travel to get away from the winter, but often northerners travel to get away from the summer. This is us
, but also we travel whenever.
OP bear in mind distances between sits and how you are going to get there. While the US dollar is worth more, Australia is not a cheap country. Consider what climate you want to be in, how far you are prepared to travel, how you will travel. Can you afford to come without sitting all the time? What would you do if your sit was cancelled? You would be a very long way from home. Not to put you off, Australia is an amazing country, but do your research before you come. Happy to help if you have more specific questions.
Actually I just had a look and currently almost 100 available sits in Australia for around a month. Varying places and some starting soon but some in June or September whatever, so I guess the question is what are you looking for? If it’s anything at all in Australia, well seems like there is plenty to apply for. 
Yes that’s true I can only speak as somone who regularly visits Australia on both East and West coasts. But hopefully I offer a perspective that’s helpful.
Hi - we’re currently looking for a sitter for 6 weeks to care for our 4 easy going cats. Based in Melbourne.
(Edited to meet Posting Guidelines)
We haven’t done Oz yet, but we have a 100% acceptance rate within a certain region of Spain (we’re from the UK). If you think about your post here, you’re asking about Australia, so imagine if someone wrote the exact same post, asking about the USA, it’s enormous and so varied.
So I would focus on which airports are easiest for you to fly into (and narrow it down to where there are a healthy number of sits), and then learn abit about that particular area so you can get across that you know-know their place in your application, and get across why you want to visit their exact area.
Otherwise you’re just a tourist looking for a random pet sit, instead of someone who really wants to be in their particular area, because almost all of us on here love pets, so that’s not enough.
For example, your post mentions San Fran… but no mention of a state/area/city in Australia, so perhaps that’s the bit that has been lacklustre in your other applications, in comparison to other sitter’s applications.
Also, make sure you don’t mention Australia too much in your application, as you may be unknowingly putting up a distance barrier yourself, rather than just naming their actual place.
Do you have a healthy number of reviews already? If not, get some within the US where it will be easier for you, and then overseas may be easier
@BonnyinBrighton you are always helpful on the forum, I just thought the “mostly skiing” during the summer was a bit inaccurate. Sure some do, but equally lots take those big school holidays to travel all over for 2-4 weeks. Not everyone lives by the beach, but a lot want to come summer time 
Take this FWIW -
US resident/citizen here. I started sitting in Summer 2019 with 3 US sits in July/August. For some reason unfathomable to me I was accepted for a 3 week sit in a 19th c castle in Somerset, UK followed immediately by a week in Edinburgh. Not sure why those folks took a chance with a new sitter with 3 reviews (I guess I write a good app letter).
Then more US sits and I got one of the Jeju, South Korea sits. And was booked to go the rest of the way around the world - Hong Kong, Sweden, UK and back to the US when covid shut the world down.
2022 I picked up about a dozen sequential UK sits.
I applied for Australia sits starting with December 2022 and got 3 over 6 weeks from Dec 2022 through mid-Jan 2023.
Work some sits, get good reviews - and work on your app letter. Make it interesting and try to put in something about why you are a good fit for the sit. And maybe have an idea of how you might fill a series of sits instead of a single month long - I started with 2 weeks in Perth and 3 weeks in Melbourne with a week-long gap. Then managed to fill in most of that week with another Melbourne sit. (I did the same thing with my strings of UK sits.)
@cateuler I’m an Australian owner and sitter and don’thave any pets. To answer your question what makes a sitter stand out for me has got nothing to do with what country they are from. I look for sitters who will be in Australia at least a few days before I leave to avoid problems with potential delayed flights. I also look for sitters with a good history of sit reviews that show they are responsible and self sufficient. I typically travel over our summer to the northern hemisphere to escape the oppressive heat and humidity here in Brisbane. However our beautiful state of Queensland is subjected to some severe weather over summer when I travel, usually storms, hail, the odd cyclone and floods. If you live inland you can cop all that plus bushfires and severe drought. It’s always at least one of those weather events from November to April. Most of Australia is the same. Sitters have to know how to deal with our weather both in times of disasters and to be comfortable living & travelling in it.
We are a huge country, the same geographical size as the USA. It takes alot of effort, cost and planning to travel throughout Australia, even for Australians. But it is the most magnificent country that you will ever visit. There is no other place in the world like it so I hope you make it here (but come for much longer than than one month).
Possibly I’ve hit a skiing ‘seam’ of HOs downunder recently and it’s skewed my perspective! 
Could be Bonnie I see I am much like Ziggy, ideally I want to get away from the never-ending summer. Finally starting to cool down a little, but 30° days expected again this week, maybe another week of swimming. Good that we all like variety I reckon 
There are two Australian specific housesitting websites that worked really well for us when we lived in Australia and became full-time housesitters. They were both much cheaper than THS and had loads of listings: Mindahome and Aussiehousesitters - perhaps give it a go if you can’t find something suitable on here. But yes, as mentioned above, have a travel plan, and when you apply, write in your application how their housesit fits into your plan. It feels more secure that way (that you will really show up, because it fits into a whole plan) than someone just ‘wanting to come to Australia’ and not knowing if you will actually show up, especially due to long distance flights etc.