House sitting in New York City

Field report · updated 2026-07-27 · live corpus

Owners who listed here mostly had sitters to choose between: 92% of 785 watched listings drew at least two applications within 48 hours. New York City has 64 open sits across 59 homes right now. Living in sits is good here: 67 gapless days across 9 back-to-back sits starting 29 Jul.

Open sits64across 59 homes
Applicants / sit3.8tracked-city median 1
Median stay7 nights59% run a week+
Posting lead4 wkhalf post 19–59d out
Gapless days679 back-to-back sits, from 29 Jul
Plan your dates in New York Citygood
6.1 sits open on a typical day

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 67 consecutive housed days across 9 back-to-back sits beginning 29 Jul — good, against the cities we track. At least one sit is open on 85 consecutive days from today, which is the ceiling — those windows overlap and cannot all be taken.

29 Jul9 handovers · 67 nights4 Oct

Remove that chain and 48 days, 38 days, 37 days remain — 4 sitters could live here at once.

todayopen sits · next 90 days · 3 days with nothing open+90 d
Supply by start month
6 months listed today

Hosts post about 4 weeks ahead (half between 19–59 days) — for far-out dates, most options don't exist yet.

Listing? Posting about 4 weeks out is normal here.

July 2026
9
August 2026
35
September 2026
12
October 2026
4
November 2026
2
December 2026
2
For pet parents · what actually happened
watched 2026-05-01 → 2026-07-27
92%

of owners had a choice of sitters within 48 hours

about 9 in 10 · n=785 · ±2pp
the 43 measured cities run 22%–95% · median 77%
56%

filled to the five-application cap within 48 hours

each watched from zero applications
for scale: 1,872 sits provably completed here in the last 12 months · 5,490 since 2016
by year (floors): 2023 884 · 2024 1,178 · 2025 1,772

Floors, not verdicts — fast-filling listings are the ones most likely to escape measurement, and these are 48-hour rates: a speed gauge, not eventual success; many sits fill after the window. How we measure →

For sitters · competition right nowcompetitive
64 open listings · snapshot

Open New York City listings average 3.8 applicants, and 11% currently have none at all.

Only 75% of listings have three or more applicants. Counts are as reported on each listing at our last refresh, across 64 open listings.

Stays & pets
59 homes open now

The median stay is 7 nights; 59% run a week or longer.

≤3 nights 20%4–7 34%8–14 30%15–28 11%29+ 5%

Of 59 homes: 25 are dogs-only, 24 cats-only, 6 keep both. Plan around the animals first — they are the job.

dogs only 42%dogs + cats 10%cats only 41%other / no pets 7%
How New York City compares
rank among 27 tracked cities
Sitter competition (competitive)90th percentile
Open supply (above the median)50th percentile
Chainability (good)58th percentile

Percentile rank among the 27 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 New York City?

Measured, not guessed: of 785 New York City listings watched from zero applications, 92% received at least two applications within 48 hours, and 56% 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 New York City?

Yes — at least 5,490 sits have provably completed in New York City since 2016, 1,872 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 New York City?

Open listings currently average 3.8 applicants, 11% have none yet, and only 75% have three or more — snapshots across 64 live listings at last refresh, not final tallies.

How far in advance are New York City house sits posted?

The median listing appears about 4 weeks before its start date; half post between 19 and 59 days out.

How long is a typical house sit in New York City?

The median stay is 7 nights, and 59% of open sits run a week or longer.

Can you live in New York City full-time on house sits?

Today's board chains into 67 consecutive housed days across 9 back-to-back sits beginning 29 Jul. That is one bookable itinerary from live listings — it moves daily as sits are taken and posted.

Compare markets

All 27 tracked cities →

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 (“competitive”, “good”) are percentiles against the 27 cities in this corpus with meaningful supply — never editorial.

Full methodology — how these are measured, and what they cannot say.