How to start a home watch business

Home watch is a simple business with an unsimple responsibility: people give you a key to the most valuable thing they own and go a thousand miles away. The work is checking that nothing has gone wrong, and proving it. Most of what separates a business that lasts from one that does not is the proving.

What the work actually is

A visit is a walk-through against a checklist. Doors and windows secure. No water where water should not be. Air conditioning running and the thermostat where the owner left it. Pool level and pump. Mail collected. Storm debris cleared. It takes twenty to forty minutes for most homes, and the value is not the twenty minutes — it is that somebody competent looked, on a schedule, and wrote down what they saw.

What it costs to start

Less than people expect. Reliable transport, a phone that takes decent photographs, and general liability insurance — your state may also require a licence or a bond, and that is the first call to make, before anything else. Many operators start part-time around another job and add homes by word of mouth.

The first five things to sort out

One: your legal setup and insurance, checked against your state's actual rules rather than a forum post. Two: what a visit includes, written down, so nobody argues later about whether the pool was your job. Three: your price, and whether it is per visit or a monthly retainer. Four: how customers reach you and book. Five: how you report back after every visit.

Pricing without guessing

Most home watch work is sold as a monthly retainer covering a set number of visits, with extras billed separately — waiting for a contractor, storm preparation, an airport run. Charging per visit looks simpler but makes your income lumpy and your customers hesitant to call you for the small things, which are exactly the things that catch problems early.

The report is the product

Your customer is not in the house. They cannot see what you did. A same-day report with photographs and a short note is the entire experience of your service from where they are sitting — it is what earns the second month, and it is what they forward to the neighbour who asks. Whatever else you skimp on, do not skimp on that.