The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Entrepreneurship => Topic started by: Cwadda on July 09, 2017, 04:15:04 PM
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Does anyone have any experience with this? I feel like I'm in a good location for this type of thing (I live in a blue collared town surrounded by several wealthy towns).
Responses are appreciated!
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Do you mean you would be facilitating connections between people who want to housesit and people who seek housesitting positions?
I'm used to this service being centralized via a few key websites, serving the world. Are you thinking about something different?
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Do you mean you would be facilitating connections between people who want to housesit and people who seek housesitting positions?
I'm used to this service being centralized via a few key websites, serving the world. Are you thinking about something different?
For now I was mostly just thinking of finding clients and doing the house sitting myself.
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Oh I see!
I've done lots of that, locally and as a traveler. Arebelspy does it as a traveler.
What were you wondering, specifically?
For me, the hardest part is that most people think they're doing me a favour by asking me to do it, lol. (This is because I tend to live in small simple homes in extremely wealthy areas, and they assume its an issue of poverty vs preference.) So they think offering me their luxury home is gift enough, lol. (It's not, I don't want the work of a pet or luxury home.) ...and most offer a chocolate bar as payment. The wealthiest offered $25/day when desperate, and that was more for walking their dog twice a day.
I think whether it pays decently or not depends on the saturation of housesitters per area. Now that they can catch free housesitters via online systems, in which the trade helps both parties, I don't know how many are still paying for this.
In my region, it seems like 20 years ago, people paid for housesitting, and now they don't.
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Oh I see!
I've done lots of that, locally and as a traveler. Arebelspy does it as a traveler.
What were you wondering, specifically?
For me, the hardest part is that most people think they're doing me a favour by asking me to do it, lol. (This is because I tend to live in small simple homes in extremely wealthy areas, and they assume its an issue of poverty vs preference.) So they think offering me their luxury home is gift enough, lol. (It's not, I don't want the work of a pet or luxury home.) ...and most offer a chocolate bar as payment. The wealthiest offered $25/day when desperate, and that was more for walking their dog twice a day.
I think whether it pays decently or not depends on the saturation of housesitters per area. Now that they can catch free housesitters via online systems, in which the trade helps both parties, I don't know how many are still paying for this.
In my region, it seems like 20 years ago, people paid for housesitting, and now they don't.
Good to know about the online stuff. I have no idea whether people would actually pay for it in my area. I was thinking of advertising on Facebook because it's a lot more out in the open than Craigslist.
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What area are you in Cwadda?
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Oh I see!
I've done lots of that, locally and as a traveler. Arebelspy does it as a traveler.
What were you wondering, specifically?
For me, the hardest part is that most people think they're doing me a favour by asking me to do it, lol. (This is because I tend to live in small simple homes in extremely wealthy areas, and they assume its an issue of poverty vs preference.) So they think offering me their luxury home is gift enough, lol. (It's not, I don't want the work of a pet or luxury home.) ...and most offer a chocolate bar as payment. The wealthiest offered $25/day when desperate, and that was more for walking their dog twice a day.
I think whether it pays decently or not depends on the saturation of housesitters per area. Now that they can catch free housesitters via online systems, in which the trade helps both parties, I don't know how many are still paying for this.
In my region, it seems like 20 years ago, people paid for housesitting, and now they don't.
Or airbnb, in a way you are having someone pay to housesit.
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Does anyone have any experience with this? I feel like I'm in a good location for this type of thing (I live in a blue collared town surrounded by several wealthy towns).
Responses are appreciated!
I know someone who tried this, I think they mostly got business through referrals.
Let all of your friends know you are available, hopefully they will let their friends know, etc. You would want some way to build trust.
Maybe you could also do pet walking and/or house cleaning as well that way your pet walking client might later become a house sitting client.
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Yeah, that was my thought. Over-saturation in the market. Pet sitting is much more viable. Had a family friend making $80k/yr cash running his dog sitting business. Very wealthy part of the country...
I'll hold off for now and keep working on my Amazon business!
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Is it a secret what city/area you are in?
Is there anything you would be willing to add on to your house sitting business? Are you not a pet sitting type of person? I know I'm not but lots of people are. There are several ways a house sitting business can be more than house sitting all the while all you are doing is house sitting. If you are in a good area I can explain if you would like.
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Is it a secret what city/area you are in?
Is there anything you would be willing to add on to your house sitting business? Are you not a pet sitting type of person? I know I'm not but lots of people are. There are several ways a house sitting business can be more than house sitting all the while all you are doing is house sitting. If you are in a good area I can explain if you would like.
Nope, not a secret at all. I put it in lots of threads. I'm in CT, in the Hartford area.
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I've seen a few websites doing this and recently hired a house sitter off of the website housecarers. I think if you were to focus on it locally, you could make it into a successful business. Good luck!
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I second pet sitting. It's very hard to find a reliable pet sitter who will actually stay at our house versus someone who will check in twice a day. We paid our previous sitter $60/night.
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As for an over-saturated market.... I've never seen a market that was too saturated for me personally to make a lot of money in if I REALLY wanted to do it. 99% of the people that own these service businesses really aren't all that smart. I can come in and market in ways they never do. I don't know if they never sit down and make a plan or if they just don't have a clue or maybe they think work should automatically come to them. And sometimes they use the same way to market but they do it once or twice.... it didn't bring in much revenue so they stop. Now that's GREAT for me, because I don't stop. I don't think there is a service business or city that I couldn't go in and be one of the top 5 within 1 year and you can too if you really try. It's a 24/7 job at first. But it sure is easy to use any ol' excuse to not do it.....
I think you want your Amazon business to succeed more than you want to house sit so give it ample time. Neither is going to make you rich by next Monday. Set a date that your Amazon business needs to succeed by and if it doesn't, then make a short 1 page business plan and move on.