This couple house-sits full time, saving $1,500 a month on rent and living in mansions for free

• Hannah and Joseph Ryan travel the US as "digital nomads" while also working as house-sitters.
  
• The couple stays in luxury homes for free in return for looking after the owners' pets and plants.
  
• They've stayed at a home with an infinity pool and view of LA and at a lake house with boat access. 

When newlyweds Hannah, 24, and Joseph Ryan, 26, were first planning their tour of the National Parks, they didn't know they would be staying in luxury homes for free across the US. But as Hannah started researching budget-friendly ways to travel, she told Insider, she stumbled on a couple of blogs about house-sitting, where you can live in people's homes for free in return for looking after their houses or pets when the owner is traveling.  

The couple loved the idea of pet-sitting in beautiful homes and decided to give up their apartments and take the plunge. Since their wedding in February 2022, they've stayed in a mansion with an infinity pool overlooking Los Angeles; an estate in San Diego with its own pool house; and an orchard and a lake house in Las Vegas with its own boat. 

They planned to travel for at least a year while working remotely and knew they needed a base

While they wouldn't be paid to house-sit, they could save on rent. 

"Van life wasn't an option for us," Hannah said. "We needed a place where we could sit down, have WiFi, and hold meetings." 

The couple checked out three house-sitting sites that match owners and house-sitters: Nomador, Housesit Match, and TrustedHousesitters. They decided to create a profile on TrustedHousesitters, and after their first job went so smoothly, they stuck with it.

Their first job was to watch a dog and a cat at a two-bedroom house near the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. The only challenge was creating protein-packed breakfasts with grilled chicken and pureed pumpkin for the dog, who was allergic to canned pet food. But Hannah said a kind owner and relaxed dog made their first house-sit an easy-going stay. 

They've house-sat in 10 other places along the West Coast, staying for up to 3 weeks at a time

"Our shortest stay has been a week, but we prefer not to do less than three weeks, as we do this full-time and you don't want to be continually packing," Hannah said.

For each potential house-sit, they tend to do a Zoom call with the owner first to find out if the pet has any personality quirks or allergies. The homeowner will usually greet them at the beginning of each stay, introduce the pets, and show them around the home.

The owners that Hannah and Joseph have house-sat for tend to be wealthy retirees and, in one case, even a Hollywood movie star. Once the homeowner leaves, the couple has the place to themselves. If there are security cameras on the property, the owners will turn them off during the couple's stay. 

"The outside ones, we'll leave on, and they will give us the security codes," Hannah said. 

Their main role is to look after pets, but the couple is sometimes asked to collect mail or water the plants

Most maintenance of the homes is usually another person's responsibility. 

"They will often have a pool guy, a gardener, and housekeepers," Hannah said. "But we are expected to keep it tidy, and we'll clean up before we leave."

Accidents can happen, so the couple took out the Premium Owner membership annual package for $259 with TrustedHousesitters, which covers them for breakages. It also covers for last-minute cancellations. "It gives us $150 a night to pay for a hotel if we've had a cancellation," Hannah said.

The most important aspect of working remotely, Hannah said, is making sure the houses they stay at have WiFi. Hannah had already been doing remote work for a couple years before she started travelling, so she said that aspect of their new lifestyle wasn't a big transition for her. When the couple isn't busy working on their laptops, they go jet skiing, paragliding, or hiking through national parks.

The longest they stay away from the house they're watching is five hours at a time, Joseph said. Although, if the owners give them the OK, they'll also take the dogs on their adventures. 

"The house we stayed at in Las Vegas was on the lakeside and had an eight-person electric boat, which their dogs loved going on," Hannah said. "We took a cruise together almost every sunset."

While they're not paid for house-sitting, the couple is saving a lot on their travel costs

"We're not paying for rent, electricity, or WiFi, so combined we're saving $1,500 a month, which is what we were previously paying for rent on our apartments," Joseph said. "If we do a road trip, as gas is getting more expensive, we tend to save about $1,000 a month."

One of the couple's favorite stays was at an estate in San Diego, which came complete with an orchard filled with avocado and lemon trees. 

"At the back of the estate was a guest house by an Olympic-sized swimming pool," Joseph said. "We stayed in the guest house, where we were treated to a beautiful view of the sunset in California each night." 

However, they got to view every inch of the estate, as one of the two dogs they were looking after was an Australian Shepherd, who would often disappear on the property. 

"He made a tunnel between the bushes that he'd rocket through, and we'd have to chase him down," Joseph said. "He never left the property. He was just a working dog who was looking for work to do." 

The key to getting booked for house-sits is creating a strong profile

On their profile, they uploaded images with their family pets and shared some of their interests. When they were first starting out, Hannah said, they also asked friends whose pets they'd looked after to provide character references. 

The couple said they still work hard to get good reviews. "We send owners updates about their pets every other day," Hannah said. "We also leave a thank-you note in our room, and maybe flowers or candy." 

While house-sitting is easy, it's also a lot of responsibility since you're taking care of someone else's property and pets 

"If you're just interested in traveling and having fun, it's probably not for you," Hannah said. "You need to remember you can't treat it like a hotel — it's someone's home."

The couple plan to return home to Virginia to visit their parents for Christmas, and then start house-sitting again in the new year on the East Coast. They're even looking at house-sitting internationally and are not averse to looking after different kinds of pets, such as reptiles, fish, and hamsters.

"The sky's the limit," Joseph said. 

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