House sitting in Berkeley
Field report · updated 2026-07-29 · live corpus
For pet parents · what actually happened
Drew 2+ applicants sitters
69%
about 7 in 10 · 2+ applications in 48h · n=341 · ±5pp
43 measured cities run 22–95% · median 77%
Filled to the cap in 48h
11%
filled to the five-application cap · each watched from zero applications
speed, not eventual success
Sits provably completed
718
in the last 12 months · at least 2,234 since 2014 · each required a chosen sitter
by year (floors): 2023 335 · 2024 489 · 2025 714
Open sits4335 homes
Applicants / sit2.6median 1 across cities
Median stay6 nights44% run a week+
Posting lead8 wkhalf 26–91d out
Gapless days981 sit · 12 Sep
Floors, not verdicts — fast-filling listings escape measurement, and these are 48-hour rates: a speed gauge; many sits fill after the window. · How we measure →
Plan your dates in Berkeleyexcellent
Pick your window. We chain the open sits that hand over cleanly inside it — computed right here, nothing sent anywhere.
The open listings chain into 98 consecutive housed days across 1 sit beginning 12 Sep — excellent, against the cities we track.
12 Sep1 handovers · 98 nights19 Dec
Remove that chain and 98 days, 35 days, 30 days remain — 4 sitters could live here at once.
todayopen sits · next 90 days · 1 days with nothing open+90 d
Supply by start month
Hosts post about 8 weeks ahead (half between 26–91 days) — for far-out dates, most options don't exist yet.
Listing? Posting about 8 weeks out is normal here.
For sitters · competition right nowbalanced
Open Berkeley listings average 2.6 applicants, and 16% currently have none at all.
Stays & pets
The median stay is 6 nights; 44% run a week or longer.
≤3 nights 23%4–7 37%8–14 23%15–28 7%29+ 9%
Plan around the animals first — they are the job.
dogs only 57%dogs + cats 9%cats only 29%other / no pets 6%
How Berkeley compares
Sitter competition (balanced)62nd percentile
Open supply (below the median)36th percentile
Chainability (excellent)80th percentile
Percentile rank among the 26 tracked cities with meaningful supply. Competition reads sitter-side: a higher percentile means more applicants per open listing — harder for sitters, busier for owners.
Common questions
Will my pet-sitting listing get applicants in Berkeley?
Measured, not guessed: of 341 Berkeley listings watched from zero applications, 69% received at least two applications within 48 hours, and 11% reached the five-application cap. Both are floors — fast-filling listings are the ones most likely to escape measurement — and both are 48-hour rates: listings often keep drawing applications after the window we count.
Do house sits actually get filled in Berkeley?
Yes — at least 2,234 sits have provably completed in Berkeley since 2014, 718 of them ending in the last 12 months. A completion requires a chosen sitter, so every one had at least one real application. These are floors from listing histories, and they cannot be turned into a fill rate: sits that went unfilled leave no trace, so there is no denominator.
How many sitters apply to a house sit in Berkeley?
Open listings currently average 2.6 applicants, 16% have none yet, and only 49% have three or more — snapshots across 43 live listings at last refresh, not final tallies.
How far in advance are Berkeley house sits posted?
The median listing appears about 8 weeks before its start date; half post between 26 and 91 days out.
How long is a typical house sit in Berkeley?
The median stay is 6 nights, and 44% of open sits run a week or longer.
Can you live in Berkeley full-time on house sits?
Today's board chains into 98 consecutive housed days across 1 sit beginning 12 Sep. That is one bookable itinerary from live listings — it moves daily as sits are taken and posted.
Compare markets
How these figures are computed
Open sits — live listings with a current or future date window; a home with several windows counts once per window.
Applicants — the count reported on each open listing at last refresh.
Posting lead — days between a listing first appearing and its start date, median across open listings.
Gapless days — the longest bookable run of consecutive covered days assembled from open sits beginning within the next 90 days: no overlaps, each sit starting the day the previous one ends.
Judgment words (“balanced”, “excellent”) are percentiles against the 26 cities in this corpus with meaningful supply — never editorial.
Full methodology — how these are measured, and what they cannot say.