House-sitting business involves staying at or checking up on a customer’s house or apartment while they are away on vacation or business. Your house-sitting services may include taking care of pets, watering plants, mowing the lawn, checking that appliances and heaters are running properly, collecting and holding or forwarding mail, and making sure the home is secure. You may have house-sitting charges by the day, or have a flat rate and charge extra for each chore that you do. Check with your insurance agent to see if you should be bonded. House-sitting is very beneficial for both homeowners and the house-sitter who get benefits in exchanging their deals by offering the caretaker duties and residential opportunities.

 

Start-up and Financing Sources

 

  • $200-$3,000. You will need to spend money on advertising, lawyer fees (for contracts), insurance payments, a computer for billing and business records. You may also need supplies for the extra services your house-sitting business may offer like cleaning, mowing the lawn, or making minor household repairs.
  • Personal savings, line of credit on your credit card, small business loans.

 

Pricing Guidelines

 

Go by the recommendations by experts in the industry to check other house-sitting fees.

 

Marketing and Advertising Methods and Tips

 

  • Place classified ads in newspapers and real estate papers.
  • Post flyers on community bulletin boards.
  • Ask for referrals from satisfied customers.
  • Send out press releases.

 

Essential Equipment

 

Bookkeeping supplies, separate telephone line with answering machine or an answering service; contracts, worksheets, and other business forms.

 

Recommended Training, Experience, or Needed Skills

 

  • Volunteer to watch a friend’s or relative’s house while they are away.
  • Work for a house-sitting business.
  • Need to be honest, trustworthy, and dependable.
  • Know exactly what the customer wants.

 

Income Potential

 

$20,000 to $40,000 annually, full-time. Earnings depend on the population density and ages of those who live in your area (older persons may travel more).

 

Type of Business

 

1/8 in-home for running the business; 7/8 out-of-the-home

 

Best Customers

 

Professional individuals or couples who are frequent business travelers, being fond of vacationing with the families or individuals, retirees

 

Helpful Tips

 

  • Understand customer needs.
  • Have ability to handle emergencies, such as power outages, appliance failures, etc. and know who to contact to handle them.

 

Benefits of house-sitting business

 

Normally house-sitting is considered to be rent free lodging with the exchange of home, garden and pets care. House-sitting jobs are offered with the reward of free rental residence for the house-sitters who are mostly the travelers and retired people.  House-sitting services offer you all house-sitting opportunities to be availed after the complete negotiation over the house-sitting charges.  House-sitting opportunities are very advantageous for the both house-sitter and home owner as the home owner finds the trustworthy care of home while house-sitter avails the opportunity of rent free accommodation. House-sitting services provide the house-sitters for the home-owners who want the care of all house-hold goods and possessions when they are on the touring or trip for some specific time period. House-sitting business has been flourishing day by day in the recent times where the people wants to lead a luxurious life style without any care or tension of a lot of responsibilities so they get the house-sitting services whenever they travel to the distant places from home.

 

Free house-sitting offers the facility of rental free package of lodging with the performance of looking after the home owners’ property and other items carefully. Hose-sitting employment is offered to the persons free of house-sitting charges who are interested to be accommodated in the house with an agreement of taking care of all pets, garden, domestic set up with cleanliness and maintenance. House-sitting caretaker employment is finalized with the agreement of performing the role of caretaker of home in exchange of free rent residence with the exemption of the house-sitter other utilities and responsibilities. House-sitting service provider takes the house-sitting contracts with some commission fee to deal the home owners and accommodators that’s why house-sitting business is considered very suitable home-based business where you have to take house-sitting contract by dealing with both clients, home owners and house-sitters.