There are times when you have to be away from your home. This may be for a short period of time or for extended periods. Whatever it is, you may need a house sitter around to keep things in order. Keeping things in order include caring for the home and possibly your pets in your absence.

Now this is a delicate matter for most people as you’ll have to entrust your property and possessions to the care of a house sitter. Here, the focus is on remuneration or pay scale. In other words, how much considered fair salary for house sitting jobs? This article seeks to provide you with answers.

Average Cost of House Sitting

The average nightly cost for a house sitter typically ranges from $30 to $55 per night. Now it’s important to understand that some people hire their friends to take care of their homes while they’re away. When hiring a friend, you’ll want to make reasonable payments.

On the other hand if you wish to hire a professional house sitter, then sticking with the average pay range will be necessary. It’s necessary to educate yourself on what these pay scales are for your location. There are several factors that affect how much you pay a house sitter. The next section discusses that in detail.

Factors Affecting House Sitting Costs

Before hiring a house sitter, you’ll do well to consider the many factors involved that could influence eventual costs. These factors include the responsibilities the house sitter will be saddled with, level of skill or experience, location, the duration of house sitting, and commuting costs.

What more? Factors such as the size of your home, amenities provided, as well as provisions will play a cost-determining role. Let’s take a look at these factors for better understanding of how they impact the pay for house sitting service.

i. Responsibilities of the House Sitter

How do you want a house sitter to take care of your home while away? In other words, what’s the job description like. Now different clients will have varying needs. Some possible tasks you may want performed by a house sitter include snow clearing, carpet cleaning, feeding pets, and taking out garbage.

Others include dog walking, house cleaning, pool cleaning, and cleaning litter box. Others include collecting mail, and taking pets for scheduled vet sessions. Here, the more the responsibilities, the higher the fees are likely to be and vice versa.

ii. Level of Skill or Experience

House sitting skills or experience will play a role in determining how much pay is doled out. We earlier stated that some persons may prefer to have their friends perform house sitting roles. Under such circumstance, the friend is unlikely to be skilled or experienced. You only pay a fair amount but not as much as you would a professional.

Professional house sitters are skilled in this area and have the experience to show. These are likely to charge much higher due to their expertise. Though this option will cost higher, the advantage of paying a skilled house sitter is that they’re trained in dog or cat first aid. These pros are also certified.

iii. Location

Location is a cost determinant when working out the average pay of a house sitter. Here, we’re talking about geographical locations and a good example is comparing larger urban centers or cities to smaller towns. Due to higher living costs in major cities, hiring a house sitter tends to cost more than it would for smaller towns.

So why are lower fees charged in smaller towns? It’s simple! These have lower living costs as such do not typically attract higher fees.

iv. Duration of House Sitting

How long will you be away from your home? This mostly determines how much time a house sitter will be spending in your home. There are different billing methods that fit the duration spent for house sitting. For example, a house sitter may have to stay overnight as part of the job.

For such, you’re likely to be charged a daily rate. However not all house sitting tasks require significant time spent in your home. For these, hourly billing may be applied. Here, it’s clear that you’ll have to take into consideration the duration of house sitting needed to have an idea of cost.

v. Commuting Costs

Another factor influencing pay of house sitter is the cost of commute. The costs and inconveniences incurred by such movement will have to be compensated for in the pay they receive. Footing their transportation costs is decision you’ll have to make while working on the pay.

vi. Size of your Home

Does the size of your home matter? It does. You’re hiring a house sitter to be responsible for maintaining your space. As such, wider spaces will require more maintenance effort on the part of the house sitter. Here, you’ll mostly find customers with larger homes paying house sitters more than those with smaller spaces like a studio apartment.

What more? It takes longer time to tidy and clean up larger spaces than it does for smaller spaces. In this case, accumulated hourly costs will logically be higher for larger properties.

vii. Amenities Provided

Conveniences provided to house sitters may impact on pay. This varies with individuals as some may decide to go all out on convenience by providing free Wi-Fi, a stocked fridge and more. Others may decide to be more conservative. Decide what it is you want to allow in terms of amenities as it will influence costs.

viii. Provisions

How much provision do you have ready to ensure your house sitter’s basic needs are taken care of? Here, the focus should be on the basics to minimize store runs which might interfere with the job being performed.

With all of these factors worked out, an agreeable and fair pay amount is reached. Also, it won’t hurt making some research on house sitter pay scale around your area. Don’t hesitate to also ask your friends or anyone in position to know.

Now you have an idea of how much to pay a house sitter. As revealed above, rates may differ from one location to the next. Plus, the factors above also play a role in determining reasonable pay.