Ryan Biddulph from Blogging from Paradise
Do you want to live rent-free in Fiji for 4 months? How about living at a football field sized villa in Bali for 6 months without paying a dime for rent? My wife Kelli and I are digital nomads who have landed house sits in some of the world’s most exotic, tropical hot spots.
We have done house sits in:
- Bali for 6 months
- Fiji for 4 months
- Costa Rica for 2 months
- Nicaragua for 2 months
- Cyprus for 1 month
- Thailand for 2 months
We’ve also landed 6 house sits in New York City, one of the most desired house sitting cities on earth.
Nailing down a Europe house sit is easy for the sheer volume of opportunities that open up in this area daily. Getting offers to house sit in places like Savusavu, Fiji, Jimbaran, Bali and Buena Vista, Costa Rica is quite different because these rarer jobs are sought after by hundreds of applicants in some cases.
How have we landed sits in some of the world’s most exotic spots? By following these tips.
Before we dive in I wanted to share 3 house sitting sites where you should set up accounts:
1: Be Picky and Patient
Be patient and picky. Patience is a prospering emotion. We sometimes wait for months between house sits to find the right one.
Remember; the goal is to land a steady number of house sitting jobs in tropical, exotic locations, not to gobble up any average sit that flows your way.
After our 4 month house sit in Fiji we patiently waited for another sit in the tropics. 1 month after our Fiji sit ended we applied for a house sit in Jimbaran, Bali. A few days after we applied we were offered the sit, which happened to be a 6 month house sit at a luxurious villa.
Don’t desperately chase house sits in more routine spots for fear of losing out on free lodging. Be picky. Be patient. Only apply for sits in the tropics. You will eventually land exotic jobs that span for months.
2: Create Transparent Profiles (The More Details the Better)
Be transparent to connect more strongly with homeowners.
If someone plans to hand the keys of their home to you – to likely watch their beloved pets – you better be transparent, clear and open about who you are.
Add social media profiles to your house sitting profile pages. Add blogs to fortify your pitch.
Homeowners can see that Kelli and I are both successful, established entrepreneurs through our blogs. More importantly, this “open book” approach to house sitting makes you shine in the eyes of people who are accustomed to seeing less than transparent house sitters pitch them for jobs.
Share details from your life. Post pictures of yourself with pets. Share your story so homeowners can get to know you better. Land more in demand jobs by being open and truthful about yourself.
3: Use Multimedia
We use multimedia to prove that yes, we are actual, living, breathing human beings applying for house sits.
We are all basically words on a screen to homeowners until we connect through some different form of media. A Skype video call. A phone call.
Add YouTube videos to your house sitting profiles to bump up your trust factor. House sitters who use video form a stronger bond with homeowners.
If you want to land the most cherished house sits you need to bring out the Howitzers. Add video to your arsenal to stand out from the crowd.
Simply record a short, authentic video introducing yourself to the house sitting community. This simple step disarms viewers and adds a personalized, human touch to your profile.
4: Respond Quickly
Respond quickly to land in-demand house sitting jobs.
We monitor our email throughout the day to field job offers.
Kelli sometimes accepts jobs within minutes or even seconds after being offered a job to house sit in an exotic locale.
Most homeowners are patient and don’t mind giving you 24 hours to respond to their offer but it helps to gobble up in-demand opportunities quickly. Especially since most homeowners field hundreds of requests from aspiring house sitters.
Responding in a timely fashion also sets a professional precedent for the sit itself. Homeowners are more likely to hand over their keys with confidence if you are easily accessible and highly responsive.
Your Turn
Have you landed house sits in exotic hot spots?
What tips can you add to this list?
Tips from @RyanBiddulph about How to Land #Housesits in Exotic Hot Spots Click To TweetBio for Ryan Biddulph
Ryan Biddulph runs the Blogging from Paradise community website, which is the place to boost your blogging income and generate more traffic. If you really work at blogging you can retire to a life of island hopping through smart blogging. Whatever you version of paradise is, and whether or not you want to live vicariously through his world travels, you can make your blogging dreams come true. Ryan runs Courses, offers Coaching, and publishes eBooks and Audio Books to help fellow travel bloggers to achieve their travel dreams and blogging objectives.
Connect with Ryan on Twitter: @RyanBiddulph
