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Property management companies take care of this for rental units.

Why not just find a good one that operates in your area and pitch the idea to them? Normally they operate for a percentage of rents but I'm sure you could find one who would do it for flat rate.

Your problem with the insurance company thing is you might have to give them Power of Attorney (which you really don't want to do) to make insurance claims on your behalf.

The Property Management company would already have the liability insurance that any company working in this space would need to do this for you.

The problem is that while they charge a flat rate monthly, that doesn't include repairs and one-off charges which get passed on to the landlord. Maybe doing a combination of property management and home warranty would be valuable, but neither industry has the best reputation IMO.

I actually did come across some of these companies when searching for a one stop solution. I'll call a few and see if any of them are interested in servicing my home. I wonder why they've never tried to tap this additional market. My guess is that they are not equipped to deal with individual home owners, instead preferring to deal with landlords that own multiple properties.

If I could find a good reputable property management company in each city, I wonder if a business could be built around them. I'd be the single point of contact for the home owners, subcontracting the work to the property management companies. Hmm, definitely worth some research.

For some reason I cannot edit my comment so I'll reply again.

I've been researching property management companies in Cincinnati (where I live) and I've come to a few conclusions:

1. There are no good property management companies in Cincinnati. At least, there are no highly reviewed property management companies - only those with negative reviews or no reviews at all.

2. Owners looking to rent their homes might be a great demographic for this idea. While most of the property management companies state that they do regular maintenance checkups, they really aren't incentivized to do so and from the reviews I read they typically don't. They're really only incentivized to keep the renter renting so that they continue to get their cut. As it stands, owners and tenants are often at odds when it comes to "needed" repairs because the property management companies charge the owners $50/hour plus parts for any repairs beyond the most routine of maintenance. Basically the property management companies have stuck themselves between a rock and a hard place where it's almost impossible to make both the owner and tenant happy. If, however, the owners were paying a larger monthly fee that covered all repairs, they'd no longer be at odds with the tenant. Of course, the problem of "tenant abuse" would then fall on us. Hopefully by being proactive with regular maintenance the abuse could be mitigated somewhat.

I'm going to call a few property management companies tomorrow to get a better idea of what exactly is and isn't covered under their plans.

Seeing as though I live in Hilton Head, I'm probably in the ideal market to try a scheme like this (#2).

There are a ton of remote homeowners renting out their property here without using a property manager or without using a good one. Unfortunately the homeowners I mention here tend to be extremely greedy people and don't have property managers because they don't want to pay anyone. They do things like advertise their units have cable TV and free wifi and have the cheapest, worst tier of service and constantly call the cable provider every month trying to get credits for fictional outages.

There's probably some money to be made here but I'm not sure I'd want to be the cog that keeps their greed-machine running.

This sounds very attractive to me as someone who just discovered my lawnmower won't start, a tree died over the winter, and 3 sprinklers are busted. I don't have time currently to deal with it.

Could it operate like Uber in a way? This service would attract a lot of handy/service men looking for work. It definitely would need a review system.

Maybe, but there would need to be some way of initially vetting them so that you don't devalue the service by regularly sending unqualified handymen to your customers homes. It's probably not too bad if the person you send to mow the lawn is only so-so, but the person you send to fix the electrical issue better know his stuff.

Also, you need some way to ensure that they actually show up when they say they will which, from my experience, is a 50-50 proposition with most handymen.

It's definitely an interesting approach though and there are probably ways to circumvent the obstacles.

As a customer, do you want to take the time to dig through reviews, or would you rather the service "just work". I am in the finishing stages of developing lawncheer, which is a service for lawn and garden work; one of the areas I struggled with, was the trade-off on transparency and the contractor development cycle; ie, lawncheer, handles everything, and there is little interaction between the contractor/customer and we have a big stake in making sure the contractors perform perfectly, or the site just facilitates a transaction, where contractors go through a basic vetting process, but the reviews are what will count. One is obviously much more easily scaled (review functionality is easy to program, onboarding and training is hard).

I guess it depends. Are we talking about a flat fee or is there an opportunity for the contractors to bid for my job? The more involved I am in the process, the less I expect to pay. But I might be fine with accepting individuals who have less experience/reviews if they will accept a lower rate. I do think the goal should be to find a specific contractor who will consistently service my yard. Meaning, I don't think I would be a fan of a new person showing up every week. That sort of thing works fine for a taxi service but I think the trust relationship changes because they're coming to my home.

Interesting; for the time being, my goal is actually the opposite. My goal (at least until data starts coming in more reliably), is to provide you the user w/ repeatable, affordable, and reliable lawn care. If I am doing my job right, the contractors from my customers perspective should be interchangeable; you build a trust relationship with lawncheer, my job is to shield you from any potential disasters. Plan is to do a flat percentage fee, for each mowing, and I will be setting the prices.

I love this because bootstrapping the concept is far simpler than an infrastructure build out, this is a super-service which can start out by sub-contracting all the individual services.

I am game, when do we start!

update: Some further thoughts on cost.

Looking at what I pay for my home (some of these I use, some I have had quoted; I also factored a monthly cost out of some of these which are quarterly). My home is upper-middle class in the midwest, about 5K square feet on 1/2 acre.

Lawn mowing: $150/mo Lawn treatment: $40/mo Pest control: $35/mo HVAC maintenance: $30/mo House cleaning: $300/mo General maintenance: $100/mo

I would certainly pay a premium for a single end point for managing these services but that last one is the stickler. Some people will never call but you will have those who want a maintenance person for every creaking floorboard, dripping faucet and other little nuance of the home.

I think the idea has lots of merit, would love to know what others think.

I think the main weakness in this business model, which is the same one with condos, is that people don't like to think about the really expensive things that they don't need to pay for regularly. When you need a new furnace/roof/fence/siding/driveway/etc., it's a multiple-$K hit. If you haven't budgeted for it (and I think most people don't), then the tendency will be to put it off for another year or three. I would guess the regular maintenance you outline takes care of perhaps only half the larger long-term upkeep problem. So prompt comprehensive maintenance with a flat monthly rate requires what seem like very high rates and some escrow, and also involves lower margins than it may appear to the customer. You may also become a magnet for customers who have already accrued a lot of "maintenance debt". So maybe you'd just need a long list of major unpredictable maintenance exclusions? Would that still be a satisfactory value proposition?

Regarding the main weakness, I think you nailed it. That being said, one could make a pretty convincing argument to the home owner that by participating in such a service, even at a premium, they'd actually save thousands of dollars. By keeping a home well maintained, you can avoid many of the big repairs that you'd otherwise be subject to. Most people don't caulk cracks when they first appear. They don't check their siding and roofing for cracks and leaks on a regular basis. They don't change out their furnace filter every winter. And a 100 other things they should be doing but aren't.

And you're right - people don't budget for the big issues. And that's all the more reason they need a service like this. A monthly, predictable bill is more manageable than a series of big, one time hits.

As for maintenance debt, pricing might need to take into account the age of the various components (roof, fence, siding, ect...). And, of course, any pre-existing conditions (ie. roof needs repaired now) wouldn't be covered at all.

I agree that the correct initial approach would be to bootstrap by sub-contracting out all the work. The trick would be negotiating favorable rates with the contractors and staying on top of things to make sure they do a good job and don't add unnecessary friction for the customers. Once business picked up enough in a city, it might be more profitable and manageable to switch to full time employees.

To start with, you could leave general maintenance off of the list of services performed, perhaps offering those fixes a la carte.

How about it being more of deductible. You would pay a flat fee for each visit of professional except the regular checkups.

It's neat, but I'd be worried about market size. This is a problem that not a lot of people have. Sorry, but for most people, it's not a big deal to call a plumber, and the vast, vast majority of people (at least in the US) clean their own homes.

EDITing my comment to be more constructive:

There could be money in a cloud- or app-based Personal Assistant, but you would really have to focus razor sharp on your target market. Rich people already have PAs and middle class people's time is not scarce enough to justify paying to get chores scheduled. You'd have to zero in on upper-middle folks like doctors and lawyers who aren't particularly rich, but tend to not have time to manage their lives. I still say it's a small market, but if you hit them and your price is right, it might work.

> It's neat, but I'd be worried about market size. This is a problem that not a lot of people have. Sorry, but for most people, it's not a big deal to call a plumber, and the vast, vast majority of people (at least in the US) clean their own homes.

I think it would do pretty well throughout West LA. It's not a big deal to call a plumber, but it is a big deal to find a good plumber that you can trust.

Likewise, it's a non-trivial task to simply be aware of the maintenance that should be done around the house, let alone finding time to do it (or, again, finding someone you trust).

Market size is definitely something that would need to be considered. I agree that the bread and butter would be the upper middle class, but I think you may be underestimating how large of a market that is. There are 115 million homes in the US, with 20% of them earning 100k or more [0]. Only a negligibly small percentage of those make over a million which is the lowest I think you'd have to make to justify the cost of a personal assistant. I also think you're oversimplifying the problem and making an unsafe assumption about how many people have this problem, but I could be wrong about that. It would need to be tested.

House cleaning should probably be an optional add-on, but I think you're underestimating how big of a market that is too. Approximately 10% of households seek outside help with at least some of their household cleaning chores.

[0] http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/16/156688596/what-ame... [1] http://www.housecleaningbiz101.com/CleaningIndustryFacts.htm

Age is more important than economic class when we're talking about potential markets for this idea.

Empty Nesters in their 50's and 60's is where this product needs to be focused. These people usually still work, tend to have more house than they need, have fewer monthly expenses, and aren't able to do run-o-the-mill house maintenance (even if they have the time). They could range anywhere between middle class and upwards.

My parents are firmly middle class, and I could see them wanting something like this.

Empty Nesters are your customers. And it's a growing market (in the US at least).

EDIT: Spelling and grammar.

I really like this idea. It would be great for renters, too, if the services could be opted for a-la carte at a slightly higher rate. For instance, in Boston, I needed someone to help bring over an in-window air conditioner from a friend's apartment and install it properly in a window. I had to spend the better part of an hour vetting different Yelp-style contractor sites, several actual contractors, and calling a few to see whether they'd be interested, available, and affordable. Being able to tap a few buttons on an app that sits somewhere inbetween Uber and Yelp would be amazing.

That said, whatever site mediates this, would potentially need to have 24x7 customer service, a billing platform (with payouts), and potentially some decent liability insurance.

Don't forget that at a certain point of client & services, the company will need to be getting bonded contractors.

I agree that with some modifications it could work for renters too, perhaps by simply offering things a la carte.

That being said, did you consider Task Rabbit? It seems like they might have been able to help you with your air conditioner install. Or perhaps not if it required a more skilled professional.

TaskRabbit

Another benefit of a successful implementation of this idea is that it could allow for a simple paper trail as evidence of good maintence which, in turn, may allow sellers to command higher prices: similar to vehicle maintenance records.

A friend here in miami does this sort of, his target market is nyc. http://serviceful.com/ check it out. not sure if he is on HN his name is juan chaparro.

In Brazil this is offered by insurance companies (it's called home insurance) for a long time.

Besides covering stuff like fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, theft, etc. they give you free home services like the ones you mentioned (hanging pictures, changing lightbulbs) and offer "emergency" services like locksmith, electrician and glazier.

It's way cheaper than your 500-1k range.

Here's one of the companies that do this: https://www.itau.com.br/seguros/residencial/

Though the door man (of one's apt. complex) often does things like this for a small fee, too.

This sounded good until you said "insurance companies". If insurance companies in the US had the opportunity, they're likely to do what they did to health care.

That's really interesting. Do you know if they cover the big costs such as when you need to replace a roof or a driveway?

I know a loss adjuster who has many years experience with insurance claims who would have exactly the expertise needed to find the right people in all the areas you describe. Largely his skills are used to benefit the insurance company (that he works for) but they could just as easily apply in the customer's favor. I'd recommend targeting prospective employees with that kind of experience.

homejoy.com & handybook.com (and others) could head in this direction?

I agree that this is an idea worth pursuing.

plowz.com is another one. Lots of service providers already being prescreened. Could help that part of the process.

Sounds like you really want a part time personal assistant?

I actually hired a personal assistant a few years back and this was one of the tasks I set them. The problem is that they didn't know any better than I who to hire for each task. That's why a service dedicating to solving this problem would be better. The service would either employee their own qualified service people or they would have a go to list of reputable contractors they could sub-contract out to.

Also, I like the idea of having a company that is invested in maintaining my home because they're on the hook for any issues that arise. They would be incentivized to perform all the regular maintenance tasks that I might neglect.

i would say the major problem is the business model:

relying on subcontracting means your company/service will be judged based on the quality/service performance of 100's of subcontractors and their employees, putting your business at risk once you want to scale.