[cathgates]

Has anyone taken advantage of this service before? We are arriving next year and are considering it as an alternative to staying in a hotel when we first arrive and, depending on the length of the sit, it may keep us going until we actually buy a property. Any thoughts?
Cath X

[Scotty69]

Hi Cathgates, when you say home sit do you mean when you move to NZ you sit someones house for them as im not sure if thats what you mean and if so it sounds great and how do you go about this. I hope im not sounding a :o bit dumb here as ive never heard of this before. Natasha

[cathgates]

Hi Natasha, yes that's exactly what I mean. I did a google and came up with a small amount of companies.
Can't make any definite enquiries as we don't have a date we are arriving yet.
Cath X

[Scotty69]

Hi i notice you other post, about your 12 year old son, if he goes th nz with you will you still home sit why im asking is that we have a four year old i think i will be doing some google searching tonight. I can see anther late night comming on.:exit

[asterix]

don't want to put a damper on this idea, but most of the agencies I've seen offering this service require the sitters to have their own place to fall back on and you need NZ security clearance and references. I've been thinking of doing it myself.
Best of luck

[Scotty69]

Oh well it was just a wee thought :rolleyes:

[cathgates]

Hi Asterix, thanks for that bit of info, I've sent an email to one of the companies, and I'm waiting for a reply, hopefully they will be able to shed some light on the possibility of being able to do this, but I suppose I can see their need for security checks.
Cath X

[Smiler]

Hi Cath

A friend of mine did this while staying in Wellington. She was staying in a backpackers and provided references and at the time was still job hunting.

She got to sit in a couple of great places too.

Have you tried www.sabbaticalhomes.com? They offer house sits too.

[kanatakiwi]

don't want to put a damper on this idea, but most of the agencies I've seen offering this service require the sitters to have their own place to fall back on and you need NZ security clearance and references. I've been thinking of doing it myself.
Best of luck

Before we moved to NZ permanently we came here often for family visits etc, and housesat on a few occassions. We did not have a security check, and we used our Canadian home as address. We did have references from both NZ and Canada. We were also experienced at looking after large dogs which was a huge plus, as it seemed most people looking for housesitters had animals.
Note some of these homesits were for short periods, 2 or 3 weeks, but we also had one for three months. So you would have to have alternative accommodation lined up in between "sits". The busiest time of the year for homesitting is the summer period, and homesitters are being lined up now for that.

[peebles16]

Am curious about home sitting and the whole rental thing generally regarding references - who do you get references from? We've owned our own home for the last 10 years so don't have a landlord reference - what kind of reference do we need?

Any help :)
Karen

[kanatakiwi]

Am curious about home sitting and the whole rental thing generally regarding references - who do you get references from? We've owned our own home for the last 10 years so don't have a landlord reference - what kind of reference do we need?

Any help :)
Karen

Well one of our references was from a friend who let us stay in her NZ house for a month at Christmas one year while they went overseas, the rest were basically character references from people who had known us a long time in Canada. We also owned our own home, so were in the same boat as you, so we got one from a high ranking government official who is our friend, that seemed to impress the housesitting company. They weren't too fussed about that aspect as they were very keen to get us to look after this place with two dogs, one of which was a handful. We got the dog sorted quite quickly and got a glowing reference from the owner when she returned, and after that the housesitting company was keen to have us do other sitting jobs.