House sitting in Berlin
Field report · updated 2026-07-29 · live corpus
For pet parents · what actually happened
Drew 2+ applicants sitters
89%
about 9 in 10 · 2+ applications in 48h · n=672 · ±2pp
43 measured cities run 22–95% · median 77%
Filled to the cap in 48h
51%
filled to the five-application cap · each watched from zero applications
speed, not eventual success
Sits provably completed
1,934
in the last 12 months · at least 6,109 since 2015 · each required a chosen sitter
by year (floors): 2023 903 · 2024 1,429 · 2025 1,942
Open sits7161 homes
Applicants / sit4median 1 across cities
Median stay10 nights79% run a week+
Posting lead6 wkhalf 26–83d out
Gapless days465 back-to-back sits · 30 Jul
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 Berlinfair
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 46 consecutive housed days across 5 back-to-back sits beginning 30 Jul — fair, against the cities we track.
30 Jul5 handovers · 46 nights14 Sep
Remove that chain and 44 days, 37 days, 30 days remain — 4 sitters could live here at once.
todayopen sits · next 90 days · never a day with nothing open+90 d
Supply by start month
Hosts post about 6 weeks ahead (half between 26–83 days) — for far-out dates, most options don't exist yet.
Listing? Posting about 6 weeks out is normal here.
For sitters · competition right nowcutthroat
Open Berlin listings average 4 applicants, and 4% currently have none at all.
Stays & pets
The median stay is 10 nights; 79% run a week or longer.
≤3 nights 7%4–7 27%8–14 30%15–28 25%29+ 11%
Plan around the animals first — they are the job.
dogs only 33%dogs + cats 5%cats only 62%
How Berlin compares
Sitter competition (cutthroat)100th percentile
Open supply (above the median)52nd percentile
Chainability (fair)44th 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 Berlin?
Measured, not guessed: of 672 Berlin listings watched from zero applications, 89% received at least two applications within 48 hours, and 51% 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 Berlin?
Yes — at least 6,109 sits have provably completed in Berlin since 2015, 1,934 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 Berlin?
Open listings currently average 4 applicants, 4% have none yet, and only 80% have three or more — snapshots across 71 live listings at last refresh, not final tallies.
How far in advance are Berlin house sits posted?
The median listing appears about 6 weeks before its start date; half post between 26 and 83 days out.
How long is a typical house sit in Berlin?
The median stay is 10 nights, and 79% of open sits run a week or longer.
Can you live in Berlin full-time on house sits?
Today's board chains into 46 consecutive housed days across 5 back-to-back sits beginning 30 Jul. 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 (“cutthroat”, “fair”) 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.