New Owner with a question for the community

I joined THS about 6 weeks ago as 2 trips were scheduled for later this spring and house sitting has become an urgent issue since we moved to our new home.

The first week got 5 responses - alll 5 sitters wanted the job - it was great!! The 2nd week (in late May)…. nada… zip…. .zero. No responses!

Is there a way for me to share the listing and have the community take a look and see if something is painfully wrong (i.e., the date is for 9 years from now… don’t laugh, it happened to me once with an airline ticket). I’m confused as to why we got such great response when it’s NOT pool season - and zero when it is!

Kevin

(Added listing for OP to his profile)

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If you need a sitter to arrive at 9am then possibly you’re not offering the previous night as a handover, this means only people nearby will offer to sit. Most HOs put ‘to be discussed’ or they offer the extra 12 hours prior to an early start.
If those dates are holiday dates in your location also check the competition in your area and see how many other HOs are offering sits.
Also take your sit down then relist it’ll appear as New rather than low applications. Best wishes
PS I looked at there’s 14 sits in your area.

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Time. The first sit you posted just before it? And now it is weeks away? That can affect wether sitters want to already apply.

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Hi @kevinsimons If I run a search for sits in Vacaville, CA, it brings up 205, and your listing appears at the bottom page 10. Most are in the surrounding area rather than Vacaville itself, but I’d guess that perhaps people just aren’t seeing it now that it is no longer marked as ‘new’. If you remove your listing briefly and repost, it should become ‘new’ again and move closer to the top. It looks like a lovely home, with a beautiful dog for company, so I’m sure it will be popular.

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Thanks for the help, everybody!

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Looks like an amazing sit! The only thing that might improve your listing is a better 1st photo for the listing. Perhaps one of the front of your gorgeous house in good lighting. Best of luck!

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Your listing is lovely (and I don’t think you should change the first picture).

it does say the you’re not currently looking for a sitter.

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Thank you for the kind words. I took the listing down so it’s not buried on the bottom of page 10 (great advice, as well as the advice for arrival time verbage. I’ll re-list tomorrow.

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Change your title, the first 6 words or so are the most important, as the rest sometimes get cut off depending on how a sitter views it. And start with your largest selling points that make your place unique.

So instead of:
Beautiful estate sized home with pool, spa, garden, half-acre fenced, convenient

Try:
Beautiful pool, spa, half-acre fenced, walking distance of shops.

Also, your first/main image is a little dark in areas to make out, so I’d swap it to the evening one of the pool, because a beautifully lit private pool is unique to you, over other places.

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Bonny,

How do you check these things (i.e., how many sits in my area, and how many pages of listings are ahead of me, etc)?

How do I see all the listings in my area?

On the THS website, click on big dark green button ‘search for homes to sit’. Type in ‘Vacaville’. It currently brings up 249 listings, but if you click on ‘view map’ and zoom in, you’ll see yours is the only one actually in Vacaville itself.

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