How to get your first home watch clients

Where the first customers actually come from in this trade, what to say to them, and the marketing that does not work.

Home watch is a referral business almost everywhere. That is good news, because it means you do not need a marketing budget, and bad news, because you cannot buy your way past the beginning.

Start with who already knows the houses

The people who see empty properties every day are realtors, property managers with overflow, pool companies, landscapers, cleaners and handymen. None of them compete with you and all of them get asked whether they know someone who checks on the place. Introduce yourself properly, explain exactly what you do, and leave something they can hand over.

Neighbourhood associations

A seasonal community where half the houses are empty for six months has a board that worries about exactly the thing you solve. Ask to be listed, ask to come and speak for ten minutes, and do not pitch — explain what goes wrong in empty houses and what a visit catches.

Be findable when someone finally looks

Most people do eventually search. What they type is local and specific: the service plus the town. That means your website needs to say plainly where you work and what you do, in the words a homeowner would use rather than industry ones. A site that says “comprehensive property oversight solutions” ranks for nothing and reassures nobody.

The first conversation

Owners are not buying inspections, they are buying the end of a low-level worry. Lead with what they get: a visit on a schedule, a report with photographs the same day, and a phone call if anything is wrong. Have your checklist ready to show them; it makes the service concrete in a way a price list does not.

What does not work

Flyers through the doors of occupied houses. Generic social posts. Competing on price against somebody doing drive-bys — you will win that customer and lose money on them, and they will leave for the next cheapest.

Ask, once you have earned it

After the first month of a new client, when the reports have been landing and nothing has gone wrong, that is the moment to ask whether they know anyone else on the street who leaves a house empty. Almost everyone does.