Feed the dog, water the garden, collect the mail and live for free!
From Peoplebrokers
Feed the dog, water the garden, collect the mail and live for free!
By DAVID M. WALKER
The Age Money & Investment
House-sitting is proving to be a popular win-win solution for absent home owners and tenants seeking a cheap and easy alternative.
Moving into rental property can leave you feeling like a cash register, doling out money for bonds to the landlord, rent to an estate agent, phone connection fees and removalist charges.
But a matchmaking service for both home owners and prospective tenants exists that saves on rent and matches home owners with tenants to mind the property and any pets during the home owner’s absence. In return for playing babysitter, the home-minders earn free (or limited rental) accommodation in the home owner’s house. Such "house-sits", organised through home-sitting agencies, can last from one weekend while the owner is interstate to four years while the owner is on overseas assignment, but Chris Kaine, the director of People Brokers, says sitters can save serious money.
Ms Kaine has matched home owners with house-sitters for 11 years, and says most house-sits last three to six weeks, using minders mainly over 30 years old. But she adds that sitters can also be pensioners seeking furnished homes where overheads comprise just their own utilities and phone bills.
Ms Kaine has about five houses being minded at any one time and up to 30 willing home-minders on her books, who may be saving for their own mortgage or renovating their existing home and don’t want to be slugged with rental or hotel fees during construction.
Cohn McKay, the director of Newcastle-based Australian House Sitters (AHS), says house-sitters may also be saving for vehicles or travel. And, he adds, house-sitting can in itself provide inexpensive travel. "We have a real shortage of people to look after homes in non-metropolitan areas. We get about 5000 calls a year from people wanting their homes cared for... from non-metropolitan areas, but at last count we had only about 415 people registered looking to house-sit in non- metro areas," Mr McKay says. For AHS, non-metropolitan areas include the Mornington Peninsula and Geelong.
Ms Kaine adds that some homeminders may need accommodation due to personal circumstances such as separation from spouses or mature-age students coming to the city for study. (A fine-arts student on People Brokers' books house-sat the home of a fine-arts lecturer, and so had access to an extensive home library for study.)
“Others may be between buying and selling properties, and so avoid bridging finance, or people may have their family home on sale snapped up and may have had no time to assess the real estate market to buy,” she says. Or house-sitters may be visiting relatives interstate and need accommodation, and find a home owner who is leaving their house but doesn’t want to pay storage costs for their goods while they lease out their property.
"You add up the sums and say yes. we could lease the home for this amount of time and get this income, but there's going to be cost involved in dismantling the household, putting things in storage and reassembling it on our return," says Mr McKay, who has 15,000 home owners and about 3500 prospective house-sitters on his books and has organised home-sits from one weekend to four years' duration.
"Unless someone’s going away for 12 months, a lot of the time they don’t find the benefits outweigh the hassles." Overseas assignments, Mr McKay adds, have a nasty habit of ending early and, if homes are leased for a set period, a home owner can return to tenants unwilling to move.
Ms Kaine finds most house-sitters and home owners on her books come from middle socio-economic streams, and says any bill-payment responsibility may be negotiated between the two parties. Minders pay People Brokers $200 for a year's worth of home-minding, whether that 365 days takes one year or 10 years to complete. And home owners pay a $110 joining fee, which includes the first home-sit, and then $110 per subsequent home-sit. Home owners may stipulate their pets be fed, or gardens maintained, or that house-sitters not take extended holidays during their stay.
"For a pet owner having a house minded, home-sitting tends to work out to be economical if they go away for three weeks or more, taking kennel fees at about $8 a day. For two pets, it becomes economical more quickly," Ms Kaine says.
She interviews tenants herself, and then suggests the home owner appoint a third party to deal with problems or decide on maintenance costs. If the home-minder proves unsuitable, they must vacate the property, she adds.
How home-sits help
- If you’re saving for a home-loan down payment and need free accommodation
- If you’re saving for travel or personal loans
- While your home is being renovated
- If you’re between selling and buying properties
- If you need accommodation quickly
- Travel opportunities to regional Australia
AHS provides to home owners a free directory of available house-sitters for their area, but leaves the interviewing of homeminders up to home owners themselves.
AHS derives its income from homeminders’ annual registration fees, which can range from $150 to $325 a year, depending upon their preferred homesitting location. Each geographic location a home-sitter registers interest in incurs an extra fee.
"For the majority of the time, the home owner will simply expect the house-sitter to cover their own costs like electricity and telephone usage. For shorter periods like four weeks there may be no charge, but for four years, house-sitters may be expected to pay for everything and maybe chip in for rates."