House sitting in Boston
Field report · updated 2026-07-29 · live corpus
For pet parents · what actually happened
Drew 2+ applicants sitters
76%
about 8 in 10 · 2+ applications in 48h · n=288 · ±5pp
43 measured cities run 22–95% · median 77%
Filled to the cap in 48h
13%
filled to the five-application cap · each watched from zero applications
speed, not eventual success
Sits provably completed
660
in the last 12 months · at least 1,738 since 2016 · each required a chosen sitter
by year (floors): 2023 232 · 2024 359 · 2025 606
Open sits3628 homes
Applicants / sit1.9median 1 across cities
Median stay5.5 nights47% run a week+
Posting lead9 wkhalf 36–94d out
Gapless days611 sit · 15 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 Bostongood
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 61 consecutive housed days across 1 sit beginning 15 Sep — good, against the cities we track.
15 Sep1 handovers · 61 nights15 Nov
Remove that chain and 38 days remain — 2 sitters could live here at once.
todayopen sits · next 90 days · 5 days with nothing open+90 d
Supply by start month
Hosts post about 9 weeks ahead (half between 36–94 days) — for far-out dates, most options don't exist yet.
Listing? Posting about 9 weeks out is normal here.
For sitters · competition right nowbalanced
Open Boston listings average 1.9 applicants, and 22% currently have none at all.
Stays & pets
The median stay is 5.5 nights; 47% run a week or longer.
≤3 nights 33%4–7 25%8–14 28%15–28 8%29+ 6%
Plan around the animals first — they are the job.
dogs only 64%dogs + cats 7%cats only 25%other / no pets 4%
How Boston compares
Sitter competition (balanced)62nd percentile
Open supply (one of the thinner markets)14th percentile
Chainability (good)60th 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 Boston?
Measured, not guessed: of 288 Boston listings watched from zero applications, 76% received at least two applications within 48 hours, and 13% 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 Boston?
Yes — at least 1,738 sits have provably completed in Boston since 2016, 660 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 Boston?
Open listings currently average 1.9 applicants, 22% have none yet, and only 33% have three or more — snapshots across 36 live listings at last refresh, not final tallies.
How far in advance are Boston house sits posted?
The median listing appears about 9 weeks before its start date; half post between 36 and 94 days out.
How long is a typical house sit in Boston?
The median stay is 5.5 nights, and 47% of open sits run a week or longer.
Can you live in Boston full-time on house sits?
Today's board chains into 61 consecutive housed days across 1 sit beginning 15 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”, “good”) 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.