House sitting in San Francisco
Field report · updated 2026-07-29 · live corpus
For pet parents · what actually happened
Drew 2+ applicants sitters
84%
about 8 in 10 · 2+ applications in 48h · n=1,282 · ±2pp
43 measured cities run 22–95% · median 77%
Filled to the cap in 48h
29%
filled to the five-application cap · each watched from zero applications
speed, not eventual success
Sits provably completed
3,209
in the last 12 months · at least 9,481 since 2013 · each required a chosen sitter
by year (floors): 2023 1,338 · 2024 2,137 · 2025 3,225
Open sits159132 homes
Applicants / sit3median 1 across cities
Median stay8 nights59% run a week+
Posting lead7 wkhalf 28–100d out
Gapless days906 back-to-back sits · 29 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 San Franciscoexcellent
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 90 consecutive housed days across 6 back-to-back sits beginning 29 Jul — excellent, against the cities we track.
29 Jul6 handovers · 90 nights27 Oct
Remove that chain and 72 days, 67 days, 66 days (+6 more) remain — 10 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 28–100 days) — for far-out dates, most options don't exist yet.
Listing? Posting about 7 weeks out is normal here.
For sitters · competition right nowcompetitive
Open San Francisco listings average 3 applicants, and 11% currently have none at all.
Stays & pets
The median stay is 8 nights; 59% run a week or longer.
≤3 nights 19%4–7 29%8–14 35%15–28 16%29+ 1%
Plan around the animals first — they are the job.
dogs only 62%dogs + cats 11%cats only 27%other / no pets 1%
How San Francisco compares
Sitter competition (competitive)78th percentile
Open supply (one of the deepest markets)84th percentile
Chainability (excellent)76th 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 San Francisco?
Measured, not guessed: of 1,282 San Francisco listings watched from zero applications, 84% received at least two applications within 48 hours, and 29% 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 San Francisco?
Yes — at least 9,481 sits have provably completed in San Francisco since 2013, 3,209 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 San Francisco?
Open listings currently average 3 applicants, 11% have none yet, and only 65% have three or more — snapshots across 159 live listings at last refresh, not final tallies.
How far in advance are San Francisco house sits posted?
The median listing appears about 7 weeks before its start date; half post between 28 and 100 days out.
How long is a typical house sit in San Francisco?
The median stay is 8 nights, and 59% of open sits run a week or longer.
Can you live in San Francisco full-time on house sits?
Today's board chains into 90 consecutive housed days across 6 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
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”, “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.