House sitting in Oakland
Field report · updated 2026-07-29 · live corpus
For pet parents · what actually happened
Drew 2+ applicants sitters
65%
about 6 in 10 · 2+ applications in 48h · n=709 · ±4pp
43 measured cities run 22–95% · median 77%
Filled to the cap in 48h
10%
filled to the five-application cap · each watched from zero applications
speed, not eventual success
Sits provably completed
1,550
in the last 12 months · at least 4,788 since 2016 · each required a chosen sitter
by year (floors): 2023 733 · 2024 1,100 · 2025 1,533
Open sits10889 homes
Applicants / sit2.1median 1 across cities
Median stay7 nights53% run a week+
Posting lead7 wkhalf 32–102d out
Gapless days586 back-to-back sits · 31 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 Oaklandgood
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 58 consecutive housed days across 6 back-to-back sits beginning 31 Jul — good, against the cities we track.
31 Jul6 handovers · 58 nights27 Sep
Remove that chain and 46 days, 42 days, 35 days (+1 more) remain — 5 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 7 weeks ahead (half between 32–102 days) — for far-out dates, most options don't exist yet.
Listing? Posting about 7 weeks out is normal here.
For sitters · competition right nowbalanced
Open Oakland listings average 2.1 applicants, and 20% currently have none at all.
Stays & pets
The median stay is 7 nights; 53% run a week or longer.
≤3 nights 22%4–7 30%8–14 32%15–28 15%29+ 1%
Plan around the animals first — they are the job.
dogs only 43%dogs + cats 13%cats only 37%other / no pets 7%
How Oakland compares
Sitter competition (balanced)62nd percentile
Open supply (above the median)72nd percentile
Chainability (good)56th 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 Oakland?
Measured, not guessed: of 709 Oakland listings watched from zero applications, 65% received at least two applications within 48 hours, and 10% 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 Oakland?
Yes — at least 4,788 sits have provably completed in Oakland since 2016, 1,550 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 Oakland?
Open listings currently average 2.1 applicants, 20% have none yet, and only 39% have three or more — snapshots across 108 live listings at last refresh, not final tallies.
How far in advance are Oakland house sits posted?
The median listing appears about 7 weeks before its start date; half post between 32 and 102 days out.
How long is a typical house sit in Oakland?
The median stay is 7 nights, and 53% of open sits run a week or longer.
Can you live in Oakland full-time on house sits?
Today's board chains into 58 consecutive housed days across 6 back-to-back sits beginning 31 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 (“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.