I’ve had a sit posted in the sought after Asheville, North Carolina area for 5 weeks and have had ZERO applications. I am an established Sit opportunity with 15 five star sitter reviews and multiple repeat sitters over about 5 years. I see there are currently about 5 pages of active Sits available in this area over the next 3 months and all are saying “LOW APPLICATIONS”. What’s going on? This has never happened to me before. Are folks seeing this generally now? Why the apparent lack of sitters??? I’m having to go to alternate platforms including paid sitter platforms which I have never had to do.
I’ll ask again, What’s going on?
THS is a marketplace, so supply and demand of sitters and sits can change. THS has been pursuing significant expansion and there seem to be more sits than sitters for many locations.
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Travel costs have gone up dramatically, so has car hire, so a lot of people will be sticking to their own country or taking short fights only. Since covid, things have not returned to normal. In the UK we have had lots of strikes, especially with the trains which make travel arrangements difficult to plan. There has been lots of advertising so many sitters are new and still finding their feet. Personally I am booked up more than a year ahead. Just make your sit as appealing as possible
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Asheville is such an amazing place! However, a few people have posted on the forums very recently, struggling to find Sitters/Guests in Asheville.
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Yes, we’re seeing this come up often. For whatever reason we’re at a point right now where there are fewer sitters than sits for any but the highest-demand areas. Sits with a lot of work – scraping up poop daily, for instance 
– or that require a car rental are sometimes going begging.
As @Chrissy says, travel costs have gone up quite a bit. I’m in Europe, but I’m also now passing up certain sits that I would have liked to do, however the travel costs are just too high to justify the expense.
I agree with @Bluehorse - it’s most likely travel costs.
I used to buy my flight fares 1-2 months in advanced, now I feel like I need to buy them 3+ months in advanced. I also post my dates as soon as I confirm flights.
Agree!
I’m tempted to take up sitting because it’s one of my favorite cities! 
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Well, I’ve seen some good sits there recently! I’ve actually considered moving there. Really special place.
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Of course. I am just wondering why the big imbalance in the supply/demand as I’ve had 20 sits over 6 years with plenty of applications each time. I didn’t realize they significantly expanded the Homeowners, but not the Sitters. Hope it balances out soon!
As I said, first time in many years I’ve run into this. I have never had an issue getting many applications for every sit. Supply and Demand for sure, I was just curious about the seemingly drastic imbalance. Thanks. Oh, and for anyone who has cared for 5 hens knows scraping the poop takes less than a minute. 
They don’t have control over how many folks sign up, whether sitters or hosts, so there will be imbalances at various points.
Just generally, it’s an easier sales pitch toward hosts, because they can save a lot in pet care costs.
Meanwhile, while there will be sitters, many folks who might want to sit don’t actually have much flexibility. Like most people work onsite and can’t easily pick up or match timing or afford travel costs and so on.
Whatever worked for you in the past with getting sitters, it’s best to review how you can make your listing as appealing as possible and possibly schedule with more lead time.
Personally, I’ve been sitting part time for a year and have found it pretty easy to get sits. That happened from the start, even without reviews or references. That wouldn’t happen if there weren’t so many sits.
I’m booked through October and would easily have more scheduled if I wanted to. And I turn down a good number of unsolicited sits or requests for repeat sits. That’s to give you a sense of supply vs. demand.
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It’s definitely been in my list of places I consider living in as well.
I also like Colorado… I just like having easy access to mountains. Chicago is a cool city but it’s just oh so flat. The Guatemalan volcanic native in me, misses mountains.
Well I’d never heard of Asheville (I’m English) so I’ve spent the last hour reading up about the area and it sounds wonderful…. vibrant music and culinary scene and x30 art galleries wow! You got my interest now …… 
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Hi @Alaskamarge, a listing is only ‘New’ for roughly 48 hours once it is posted. If there are 0-2 applicants, it then is labelled ‘Low Applications’ on the app or ‘Recommended’ on the website. If you remove your dates for a brief time (5 minutes even) then re-post them, your listing should become ‘New’ which is what you want. Significant changes have occurred post-pandemic with THS so if you don’t have your Notifications on, you may be unaware of these. The Forum is where many members find out what is going on!
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Just guessing: I think there are multiple factors:
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Push for “back to the office”: So many people were forced to be digital nomads when offices closed during COVID and soon found this allowed for more travel, so THS was a very attractive option. Now many offices are demanding that people work from home NEAR the office and/or come in 2 or 3 days a week.
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High airfare/car rental/gas/other travel expenses: The rise in prices for related travel expenses may be keeping more people off the road. We sit occassionally but choose very carefully to avoid paying too much for our sitcations.
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Location. THS advertising and sitter expectations: I’m still getting plenty of applications for my very humble NYC home! For better or worse many new sitters are believing the hype and approaching THS as a travel hack to get them where they want to go. That probably means major tourist destinations and truly unique “experiences” are going to take the bulk of applications. A nice home in a nice small city might not be what they are looking for.
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Your Listing: Possibly there are things you could do to make your listing more attractive – even if it’s worked for you previously.
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I had noticed a downtick as well however, then I got several applications within a week, I think it really just depends on people making their plans, etc. there have been other times where we’ve had plenty of applications that came in right away as well.
When I post winter dates, I don’t get many applications either because Chicago is viewed as one of the coldest cities in the U.S.; typically, that was the case before climate change!
This past February, we rarely had snow but instead had 60-degree Fahrenheit weather, which is incredibly unusual and the warmest winter in this city’s history. I had a very hard time complaining since I didn’t travel in February, but it also kind of concerns me about how hot this summer will be.
Then, I posted summer dates, and I hit my five-application limit within 24 hours. July is very hot here in Chicago, and we get some scary thunderstorms as well, but it is easier to get around than with bad winter weather.
It also depends on when your sit will take place - in a month from now, a few months? As @wendy_chicago says, it often used to be sufficient to book flights 1-2 months in advance. Now that’s sometimes already too late to lock in an affordable price.
Which means that for sits that start within 4-8 weeks, it doesn’t always make sense applying (previously it did!), because the air/train fare is already beyond the max I’m willing to pay
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