Hi All - new owner here. I am a bit confused about the process. I have made my listing and several potential sitters have responded. Is my next step to “invite” them to initiate further discussion? Can I invite a bunch of them without offending anyone? Once I invite them, are their any obligations established?
Thank you for your help!
Hi. Welcome to the forum.
I am a sitter but I understand that your next step would be to message your applicants, acknowledging their application and perhaps suggesting further contact. If there are applications that don’t fulfill the criteria of your listing you can decline their application, you can have a chat with them or some of them to help you find the best match. You can also ask questions you consider relevant just via message. It is up to you. But I think if you “invite” a sitter that means you are offering them the sitting, so you must choose first.
The agreement is not firm until you have offered the sit to an applicant (just one) and they have accepted through THS.
If I were you, I wouldn’t keep them waiting for long as they may have other options and can withdraw their application.
This thread may help you to anticipate the kind of questions sitters usually have for owners
Thank you very much for the quick reply. 
At the risk of driving this into the ground, let me recap in detail. I posted the dates for the sitters. I received a few emails saying sitters 'had saved my listing". I followed a link from there to a page on the web site where it shows the sitters who saved the listing. I click on one of them - up comes their profile - perfect. There’s a button on that page that reads “Invite Sitter” - if I click that, I get to another page to confirm the dates I want to invite them for (I have only one listing, so that’s obvious). The next page has a big empty text box (50 character minimum) for me to “Write Your Invite”. My question is:
is it cool to “invite” multiple sitters (the community seems to be awesome and there are very qualified people potentially available) through this step? Is this just to continue the conversation to determine schedule and other compatibility or is it a bigger commitment?
Thank you again for your help.
@_drex ,
Welcome.
Nothing is confirmed until the HO and sitter BOTH confirm a sit. It sounds like you are a couple steps away at least. It is pretty clear and THS gives you a warning (well, warning is strong) prior to doing so.
Thanks for posting!
Sorry. As a sitter I don’t know exactly what you can see as an owner, I am not sure if you can invite more than one sitter at a time but if one accepts I think then the sit is confirmed. Anyway, from my own experience and from what I’ve read on this forum, most sittings are agreed via applications rather than by owners invitations. You can message the sitters that have saved your listing but if they have not applied this would probably mean that they are not available or are considering several options and have not made up their minds but you have nothing to lose by asking.
There are several threads about invitations that may be helpful
(Can HOs invite sitters without opening their profiles?)
What's up with all the invites?
Good luck with your listing.
The invitation is to apply. It is not an offer of the sit in the sense that if they accept you are then confirmed or committed.
What an invitation does do is open the inbox to have further discussion. This is a big advantage as it is very difficult to communicate without an application.
As a sitter I have received invites but have rarely been available for the particular dates listed.
When a sitter favorites your listing without an application it usually means that they like your sit but are not available. They then will be notified should another listing with other dates become available.
But as I said, sending an invite opens communication if the sitter’s profile appeals to you as a good potential.
You can invite as many as you like without any obligation and you can say in your invite that you are interested in learning more about them and why they favorited your listing.
Best wishes
Hi @_drex
Just to confirm I like many sitters will mark as a favourite if I like the sitting listing but the dates don’t work. By favouring a listing THS will notify in future if new dates become available.
Best waiting until you receive applications which I believe end up in your inbox (although I’m not a HO so may be wrong).
There is a difference between a sitter favouriting your listing and a sitter applying for a sit after dates have been posted. As a HO we get notified once in a while that sitters have favourited our listing even when we don’t have dates published. It’s just a way for a sitter to indicate they might like the location or the pets and maybe like to apply if a sit becomes available. I think they get a notification when dates are published on favourited listings. When you invite one of those sitters it does not mean they are available as soon as you need them. And from what I’ve read many times in this forum the success rate of inviting a sitter is very low. Once you publish dates for your listing sitters that are interested will apply and you choose one of those after going through the process of acknowledging their interest, messaging them or having a video chat or whatever process you choose. We always try to be prompt and not keep people waiting. The criteria you base your choice on is entirely yours. Be aware that a sitter may apply to multiple sits at the same time trying to better their chances of being chosen. So don’t leave them hanging too long or you may hurt your own chances of booking a great sitter. Good luck.
THANK YOU EVERYONE!!
I understand (and it makes perfect sense). I can’t believe I was not aware of this absolutely fantastic resource until recently. Finding reliable house sitters has been such a source of stress, and I’ve already seen so many qualified interesting potential sitters. Thanks again for your excellent help.
You are inviting a sitter to apply for the dates. I think the wording isn’t great. It implies once you invite and they accept your dates it is a done deal!
I received an invitation this morning and this is the wording a sitter receives.
‘“ Philip has invited you to apply to these dates”
@Amparo is correct in this thread.
The direct answer to your question: You can invite multiple Sitters, since you are only inviting them to APPLY to your Sit dates.