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Future in Housesitting – Trust is the New Currency in 2030
When I happened upon housesitting as a business over 10 years ago I was struck by the opportunity to enjoy affordable travel through collaboration using the internet. Setting up a business where I could facilitate the meeting and matching of like-minded people across the world, was appealing. It appealed to everything I loved, pets, travel and the home. So after some research and a bit of effort I launched HouseSit Match. It was a tremendously fun idea with promise. I wanted to drive the future in housesitting.
Small Acorns
How I happened upon housesitting as an idea to develop business was one of those apocryphal thunderbolt moments, chatting with a friend over a good curry. She was housesitting for some people in Perth, WA while they were working abroad. Meanwhile, she was saving a year’s rent by caring for an adorable dog in their lovely home with a pool close to the city centre. No money changed hands! A penny dropped.
They were introduced by an agent and after a couple of background checks at either end she moved in. What if you could take that overseas or anywhere? The notion of the business facilitating affordable travel through collaboration via the internet opened up the concept of a future in housesitting that was sustainable as a business, efficient to run by myself with a remote team, and more importantly I could be anywhere working via my laptop.
It appealed to everything I loved, pets, travel and the home. So after some research and not a little effort I launched HouseSit Match, and from that small acorn we now operate in over 25 countries. It’s a tremendously fun idea with a promising future. I wanted a future in housesitting and I could see it grow across the world.
Unlocking a Future in Housesitting
Two things were a priori to make this concept work properly and to run it as a business. global access via the internet and building trust not just in a new online business but more importantly between customers wanting to connect and collaborate with total strangers online. How to facilitate both from scratch? This would be the way to unlock the business potential.
Access to the internet
Back in 2015 access to the internet was becoming increasingly critical for all businesses and more importantly all homes. Even when we were on holiday as a family in Cornwall (a British county with notoriously poor mobile reception) we were finding better reception than in previous years. So if the internet was finally penetrating the granite around Cornwall, then the timing felt good to launch an online business.
The internet offered a magnificent global platform to give access to all kinds of markets. In the UK Ofcom’s 2015 Q 1 report estimated that 85% of homes had access to the internet.
By contrast today with mobile phone access near ubiquitous 94% of 16+ adults have access to the internet via smartphone. We’ve moved from exclusion to inclusion. So in a decade we have taken a leap into our future in housesitting simply by piggy backing of access to and use of the internet.
The internet is a wonderful thing, people search and if you are visible they find you. Today nearly every adult in the developed world can access any commercial site from anywhere with an internet connection, they can do anything from buying airplane tickets, having dog food delivered on a specified day and time, and even managing personal banking securely through a mobile phone! Doubtless we’ve all come a long way.
To prove my point we launched the business first promoting in the UK and Australia as that’s where we had our main business contacts. And within a short period and rather unexpectedly we secured a customer in Costa Rica who needed housesitters to care for her property in her absence. She had searched online for a housesitting solution and found us.
Problem solving online – Gateway to a future in housesitting
In early 2025 there were “67.8 million individuals using the internet in the United Kingdom at the start of 2025, when online penetration stood at 97.8 percent, ” showing us that nearly everyone is online now via mobile, according to Datareportal.
Today when you have a challenge you want to solve it quickly, the internet helps you search for possibilities and find solutions. Housesitting is one such solution for many people looking for home and pet care and opportunities in affordable travel. And with the cost of living galloping in all walks of life the opportunity to save costs through old fashioned barter by collaborating with people can be a useful saving.
Finding a win-win solution
When you make an informal housesitting arrangement for a housesitting platform like HouseSit Match no money changes hands between members of the network. You exchange services – It’s a win win!
So we needed to find a way to help people find us when they were searching for pet care, affordable pet minding and other such key words online. We built a blog that offers all kinds of case studies and top tips to enable people to find a solution to their home and pet care challenges when searching online.
Our HouseSit Match Blog is now run like a magazine, an E-Zine if you like, focused on sharing all kinds of solutions to such challenges and it acts as a filter to collect new site visitors to our information stream. Many eventually convert to being registered members of our network.
House and Trust: The Future of Safe, Smart Housesitting
And what of security and building trust online
We started by focusing on security and running checks on newly registered members. While it sounds like ancient history now, at the time in the UK we had to write to various authorities requesting security checks on individual members, they would eventually respond by snail mail with a valid background check for each member. We quickly gravitated to online solutions as they became available investing early on with companies like Onfido, Mitek and Experian.
Today we have several methods of ID and security checking in place, all done imperceptibly online, at the touch of a button on registration, including in depth checks through Stripe our payment processor, Verifile a UK based global player and several other methods to ensure our site remains a safe space for members.
Proving online trust with evidence of previously earned trust
Trust has indeed become the common language online, certainly in the Sharing Economy where so much of our connection and trade depends on mutual dependency, collaboration and agreeability. Trust and evidence of previously earned trust has become the starting point for any new conversation between us and our customers, and for the customers to talk to each other. By creating that firm foundation in our business, and with ID tech advancing daily I am convinced this investment ensures we have a future in housesitting worldwide.
Speed, convenience and the internet savvy customer
Essentially, in the minutes it takes to complete the form today a myriad of checks can be run on customers at a moderate price, nearly all over the world. Unlocking access to speedy, valid and affordable security checking secures our future in housesitting. We have invested in setting up these processes for our members, because it is important and consistent with our brand values, as well as the efficiency of the site.
Photo by Frederik Lipfert
Meanwhile, our audience was becoming more internet savvy, more used to checking online through other services they were purchasing on a regular basis and of course with that familiarity comes a decreasing attention span!
So in order to ensure we have a future in housesitting we recently invested in a new website to optimise page loading speeds and an optimal user experience. This has become absolutely vital for any business online, and a priori for any business involving customers in engagement processes beyond the purchase process. So we now have a fast loading speed and a three click maximum for all our main activities online.
Communications and Displaying Evidence of Security Checks
Displaying security checks against each member’s profile was almost more important than doing the checks. New members needed to see that each profile had been checked and how, regardless of our promise that checks had indeed been managed at registration. Communication became a vital part of the housesitting process and would ensure our future in housesitting as a viable brand and trusted platform.
We also need to tell people at every stage where they are in the process of engagement with us and with each other. Today people like to choose their method of communication so we cannot simply rely on email or text. People are asking us for information, asking questions, and wanting support across all manner of formats. What is more we are competing in the seemingly ever expanding choice of communications platforms which makes it even more challenging to keep our members engaged.
Did you know that in the UK the average online adult uses 36 apps per month, according to an Ofcom Top Trends Survey; and the demand for social media engagement continues to grow with users engaging with 6.4 social media apps per month. So we keep our communications channels wide open to ensure we have a future in housesitting because for HouseSit Match good communications drives the flow of information and engagement.
Building a Trusted Community with Shared Common Values
While words always matter, because in a spoken language they underpin our communication, our understanding of one another and all trust based engagements are based on the validity of those words, yet in the online world words aren’t everything, in fact they are meaningless unless they are backed up by evidence and visual proof that is instantly understandable.
Building reference points of trust
One of the first things we did when we started was to find ways of establishing our credentials as a reliable source of housesitting solutions for new customers. With the first few engagements we were able to build a series of online reviews for example with Trustpilot a globally recognised brand where genuine customers publish their thoughts on the products or service they have just purchased.
We asked real customers to write about their experiences and we shared their stories via our blog, and through our newsletter and social media posts. This is an activity we have continued and we continue to receive offers of new blogs from our customers sharing their experiences on a regular basis.
Networking with trusted communities with common values
From early on in our existence we have engaged with trusted communities that share common values with our brand to ensure we recruit like-minded individuals as much as possible. To that end we currently collaborate with NHS employees, and NARPO the association for retired police officers in the UK. All the contacts have been engaged professionally in caring and community based work which is part and parcel of how we work and look after for our customers at HouseSit Match.
To ensure our recruitment streams attract like-minded individuals who connect with our goals to provide safe and secure housesitting and petsitting solutions around the world, means we believe we have a sustainable future in housesitting.
The Future in Housesitting is Green
BY its very nature housesitting is simplicity itself, with a housesitter moving into a homeowners footprint, this form of travel and tourism is lighter on the planet. It offers sitters a new kind of holiday escape, they live like a local in the owners home, and discover a whole new location and destination that may be completely new and exciting to them.
This form of travel and adventure means you can get very deep into the locale. You discover the inside track of a destination with the local owner as your expert guide as they frequently offer you all manner of suggestions for their favourite places to visit, the best markets to shop and views not to miss on your dog walk. The green credentials for housesitting are plain, however, there is enormous value to be gleaned from promoting these green values and side benefits, not least for the planet.
Living-like-a-local is green
I completed a housesit a year or so ago that was only 7 miles from my own home. A client needed to get away unexpectedly and unusually I stepped in to care for their pets and home. In that week and thanks to the client’s suggestions I discovered all manner of places to visit as a tourist, not 20 minutes from my own home, all previously unknown to me:
- an organic vineyard operating close to my home of 25 years
- remarkable historical artefacts on display not commonly known outside of the village
- a functioning windmill still in use by a historical re-enactment group
- fantastic woodland walks
- award winning country pubs walking distance from the housesit.
There can be no doubt that housesitting is easier on the carbon footprint than an all out multi-vehicle multi-destination holiday. The need to explore and promote such innovative and considerate forms of travel and exploration of our planet will help us to appreciate and care for our precious resources with greater urgency and accountability. These encouragements and positive steps will also help to ensure not only a future in housesitting, but also the future of the planet.
Photo by Mark Thelwall
Extracting maximum value from the housesit experience
The future in housesitting will expand by promoting the wealth of experience available by housesitting as a form or travel offering access to insider knowledge offered by the homeowner, that also happens to be very affordable and green. Housesitting is definitely a ‘light travel footprint’ option and often all the more exciting for it!
You can of course go housesitting further afield and do the same local discovery adventure, staying close to the property and learning all about the locale as a tourist. Often this is more affordable and always a lighter footprint on the planet.
Promoting this recalibration of a travel adventure, and how you cut your costs on a working holiday enables the housesitter to really extract maximum value from the housesit experience and will help to ensure a future in housesitting as the ultimate green adventure. It enables the housesitter to create their own housesitting travelogue, like a modern novel set overseas igniting the senses, exploring somewhere new, the housesit host as your guide.
Is There a Future in Housesitting?
Now more than ever there is not only a future in housesitting, but a need for green travel and new and alternative affordable travel options. For the modest price of membership to a housesitting platform (a mere £ 89 per year at the time of writing this article) anyone who is happy to collaborate for mutual benefit can enjoy a new travel adventure exchanging their time and services for free accommodation while caring for pets and property.
Home and pet owners too see the benefit. They are direct beneficiaries with reliable care from checked and reviewed house sitters living in their home, looking after their property and pets as they were their own. And the variety of properties on offer has tempted many a homeowner to join as a housesitter at the same time. Worth a look!
Photo by Jenny Kaye
The Future in Housesitting is Assured
We all need to be mindful of our travel footprint, and a trying a housesitting assignment instead of a traditional holiday is a great way to manage your impact on the planet. It creates low cost ways to manage home and pet care in these days of increasing cost consciousness, by leveraging worldwide access to the internet and providing online solutions for the everyday domestic challenges that we all face.
Housesitting platforms like HouseSit Match are trusted resources that help facilitate mutual benefit through online engagement of checked and trusted members of the platform. And as long as security is assured, online access is at an optimum and the flow of communications is as customers need it to be, then a future in housesitting is assured.
By Lamia Walker
Founder and CEO of HouseSit Match
Further reading for anyone wanting to learn about house sitting
At HouseSit Match we always try to share useful and informative blogs like this one on ‘The Future in Housesitting’. Read these articles to learn more about housesitting and the benefits.
What a house sitter does – Top 10 responsibilities
