House sitting in Victoria
Field report · updated 2026-07-29 · live corpus
For pet parents · what actually happened
Drew 2+ applicants sitters
74%
about 7 in 10 · 2+ applications in 48h · n=251 · ±5pp
43 measured cities run 22–95% · median 77%
Filled to the cap in 48h
14%
filled to the five-application cap · each watched from zero applications
speed, not eventual success
Sits provably completed
585
in the last 12 months · at least 1,779 since 2013 · each required a chosen sitter
by year (floors): 2023 224 · 2024 360 · 2025 611
Open sits3127 homes
Applicants / sit2.4median 1 across cities
Median stay13 nights68% run a week+
Posting lead8 wkhalf 40–122d out
Gapless days371 sit · 16 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 Victoriafair
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 37 consecutive housed days across 1 sit beginning 16 Sep — fair, against the cities we track.
16 Sep1 handovers · 37 nights23 Oct
Remove that chain and 33 days remain — 2 sitters could live here at once.
todayopen sits · next 90 days · 3 days with nothing open+90 d
Supply by start month
Hosts post about 8 weeks ahead (half between 40–122 days) — for far-out dates, most options don't exist yet.
Listing? Posting about 8 weeks out is normal here.
For sitters · competition right nowcompetitive
Open Victoria listings average 2.4 applicants, and 6% currently have none at all.
Stays & pets
The median stay is 13 nights; 68% run a week or longer.
≤3 nights 13%4–7 29%8–14 16%15–28 35%29+ 6%
Plan around the animals first — they are the job.
dogs only 44%dogs + cats 26%cats only 30%
How Victoria compares
Sitter competition (competitive)78th percentile
Open supply (one of the thinner markets)0th percentile
Chainability (fair)26th 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 Victoria?
Measured, not guessed: of 251 Victoria listings watched from zero applications, 74% received at least two applications within 48 hours, and 14% 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 Victoria?
Yes — at least 1,779 sits have provably completed in Victoria since 2013, 585 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 Victoria?
Open listings currently average 2.4 applicants, 6% have none yet, and only 52% have three or more — snapshots across 31 live listings at last refresh, not final tallies.
How far in advance are Victoria house sits posted?
The median listing appears about 8 weeks before its start date; half post between 40 and 122 days out.
How long is a typical house sit in Victoria?
The median stay is 13 nights, and 68% of open sits run a week or longer.
Can you live in Victoria full-time on house sits?
Today's board chains into 37 consecutive housed days across 1 sit beginning 16 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 (“competitive”, “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.