I don’t understand :
I’m searching for sits in an admittedly popular area over Christmas.
I last checked 3h ago and there was only one listing which didn’t appeal.
Just now, I see SIX new listings “under review” !!!
Does this mean that they appeared and reached the 5app max in such a short peiod of time…..or am I missing something ?
Favouriting means absolutely nothing as two of these sits had been amongst my “Favourites”
Yes I do think some sits can reach the limit fairly quickly. I recently did a sit in a very popular area. I happened to be looking at the listings right when she posted it, and she said I was the first applicant. I noticed it had gone into review within a few minutes after I applied.
From what I have observed, notifications of ‘favorited’ listings seem to come more quickly than listings that fit the criteria of a saved search. But I don’t think those are in real time either.
Yes Popular sits get applications in minutes - I just received notification of a sit in Paris - clicked through immediately and they are already reviewing applications.
When I am looking for a sit I check at least 4 x per day (8 if my work schedule allows) plus I get up at 1 am to check again when it is 9am in Europe. Thank you THS. Nothing says we don’t care about our paying customers more than the 5 application limit.
Yeah, they do go that fast. When I joined I was hoping to get something in Hawaii, and they went from zero to 50 applications within 24 hours. Now that there’s the 5 limit (too few, IMO) I imagine they go in minutes.
@toreishi, demand and supply have a big impact on listings.
Demand - for one reason or another, some listings are much more appealing to prospective housesitters. They reach five applicants in minutes.
Supply - number of listings in each geography varies materially. THS has many listings in USA, UK; a reasonable number in Canada, Australia; and slim pickings elsewhere (see weblink below)
Favourites gives you the same notification as a Saved Search. It does somehow give priority access.
Encourage used combination of Favourites & Saved Searches - each with notifications enabled - and application speed commensurate with perceived attractiveness. If it’s a fabulously attractive listing then it will not last long.
Happy hunting.
These are some of my experiences with notifications and sits going into review before you even see them being posted:
Currently I am trying to secure sits in Spain which has very few listings and a lot of sitters applying. Some listings can get 5 applications literally within a minute of the first notification for “favorited listing” being sent out.
As others mentioned, you will get a notification for your favorited listings first, but even those are being sent out with a delay, so in places where there is a limited offer and a lot of demand even a notification for a favorited listing will give you only a couple of minutes to click on “APPLY” before they will go into review. This is the case for most of the sits in Barcelona for example.
I have also noticed that if I have several searches for different cities, regions, filters and there are listings that will match several of the searches they will trigger notifications with different delays that will be sent withing a couple of minutes.
I can speak only of continental Europe here, but sits for popular cities with not many listings are full within a couple of minutes.
There 2 petsitting apps (that i know of) that automate the application process. You get immediate notifications and one that claims you can also auto submit an application.
Wow ! I admire your tenacity (and your snark) !
I appreciate your thorough response and I have never, ever received notifications for my fave listings - in popular or less popular areas.
That fuction is useless in my experience.
When I was mentioning notifications I was referring to app push notifications.
If you are using the mobile app, if I remember well, the default setting is that you are receiving only push notifications for your favorited listings, no emails.
You need to enable push notifications in the app/maybe even in your mobile settings.
With the searches, if you save them on desktop, I have also noticed that it’s not enough to have push notifications enabled in the mobile app to get them.
Every time I save a search on desktop I still need to go and open the specific search settings (3 dots beside a saved search) in mobile app and switch on push notifications manually. Else the search would trigger only an email to be sent to my inbox (I have missed some good searches before I figured that one out) - which is kind of useless for very popular areas with the time delay. At least that’s how it works for me.
When we list dates for our property, the applications are paused and the listing is placed in “under review” status within the hour.
I tried last year and now again this year for a sit in New Orleans, on my way back from California and it is so hard. I check 3/4 times a day for anything in the area for a period of time, and it is 11 days period. Nothing has come up for months. For popular listings, like Florida in Jan or Feb, I found that the listing wasn’t there in the previous evening, was up early in the morning and had 4 applications when I applied.
Hi, Would you mind sharing which apps or pm me?
What areas are you looking at to sit over Christmas? I am desperately looking for a sitter in Dorset UK
That’s outrageous. At this point I think we need to kick the tires to make notifications work. I gave up a long time ago. I miss many good sits. And I am a much less happy THS customer.