Property Watch
Handis property watch is a residential walkthrough service for homes nobody is sleeping in — vacation cabins on the I-90 corridor, snowbird primaries that sit empty October to April, vacant listings on the agent's books — from $600 a year for a weekly drive-by on a single listing to $2,400 for a weekly walkthrough plus a full snowbird winterize-and-restart program. The same vetted handyman walks the property on a fixed cadence (weekly or biweekly), runs an exterior and interior check, eyes every fixture that holds water, brings in the mail, takes a dated set of photos, and lands a report in your inbox the same day. We do not sit at a desk in another state and trust a smart camera — we walk the house.
Programs
What Handis Property Watch Covers
Property watch is the walkthrough discipline for houses without a body in them. Three programs — vacation home checks, snowbird property care, and vacant listing checks — each on a fixed weekly or biweekly cadence, each with the same dated photo report at the end. We catch what an empty house quietly does on its own: the toilet that starts running in November and overflows the wax ring by March, the broken downspout that erodes the foundation bed all winter, the storm-blown branch that punctures the roof on a Tuesday nobody knows about, the package on the porch that tells a passerby the owners are gone. The crew walks the perimeter, walks the inside, eyes every fixture that holds water, takes the photos. We do handyman scope only — anything that turns out to need a licensed trade (gas, hardwired electrical, in-wall plumbing) routes to a Washington L&I-licensed contractor and we line up the schedule.
Vacation Home Checks
Weekly or biweekly walkthrough for second homes — Hood Canal, Lake Chelan, Cle Elum, Crystal Mountain, the San Juan Islands, anywhere a Seattle-area family keeps a place they only occupy a few weekends a year. Exterior walk, interior walk, plumbing visual (water heater base, under every sink, toilets, washer hookups), mail and package retrieval, thermostat check, and storm response when the weather kicks up. From $900 for biweekly, $1,800 for weekly, $2,400 for weekly with front-of-line storm response.
Vacation Home Checks — weekly or biweekly walk with photo report
Snowbird Property Care
The October-to-April program for owners who leave the Pacific Northwest for the winter — Palm Springs, Arizona, Florida, Hawaii. Full winterization in October (hose bibs insulated, irrigation drained, sump pump tested, thermostat set, water shut-off planned), weekly or biweekly walkthroughs through the cold months, and a spring restart visit the week before you land. We catch the slow leak in January, the storm-damaged shingle in February, the broken seal on the basement window before the spring rains find it. From $900 for the basic program, $2,400 for weekly visits with storm response and a spring punch-list day.
Snowbird Property Care — full winterize, weekly while-away, spring restart
Vacant Listing Checks
Weekly drive-by plus interior walk for vacant residential listings — homes on the market, between tenants, or held by an investor between flips. Built for real-estate agents, property managers, and investors who need a chain-of-custody record of who walked the house when, and what condition it was in. We are not a commercial-building service; this is the residential referral channel that covers single-family homes, townhomes, and small-multifamily listings under residential management. From $600 for a single listing on a weekly drive-by, $1,800 for multi-property portfolio contracts.
Vacant Listing Checks — weekly drive-by plus interior walk for vacant residential listings
Property Watch Pricing
Pricing depends on the program, the visit cadence (weekly vs biweekly), the property size, and travel distance from the Seattle metro. Each child page lists the variant pricing in detail. Multi-property contracts (small property managers, investor portfolios) are quoted with a per-property discount. Storm-response visits are included in weekly programs and billed per visit on biweekly programs. Request a free estimate for an accurate quote.
Tell us where the property is and how often nobody is in it — we will pick the program and quote the year.
Why Seattle Owners and Agents Book Handis Property Watch
Property watch is a service most pitches over-promise and under-deliver. The brochure says "weekly inspection" and what shows up is a parking-lot drive-by, no interior walk, a photo of the front door, and an emailed PDF that fits any house in any market. Ours runs the other way. We walk the perimeter, we walk every interior room, we open the cabinet under each sink, we lay a hand on the toilet base and the water heater pan, we check the thermostat and the smoke detector indicator, and we photograph what we find. The same handyman runs the route every visit, so the notes from last week are in his head when he opens the front door this week. The slow leak that started small in November is the slow leak that gets caught in December, not the disaster found in March.
A real walkthrough, not a drive-by photo of the front door
Every visit opens the front door (or the lockbox the agent gave us). Every visit walks the interior — kitchen, bathrooms, basement, attic access. Every visit eyes the plumbing — under sinks, water heater pan, washer hookups, every toilet base for the slow weep that starts a slab leak. The photo report shows what we actually saw, with date stamps, not a generic file photo.
Same tech every visit, notes that carry forward
The handyman who walked the house last week walks it this week. The downspout that was sagging gets a second photo from the same angle — is it worse, the same, fixed? The toilet that ran briefly in October gets a thirty-second listen in November. Continuity is the entire point — a different person every visit is starting from zero each time, which is functionally no inspection at all.
Storm-response built into weekly programs
The PNW winter delivers windstorms, atmospheric rivers, occasional ice, and the occasional snow event that downs power for days. Weekly programs include a storm-response visit within 24 hours of any National Weather Service alert that hits the property's ZIP — branch on the roof, downed gutter section, flooded crawl space, power-out check on the freezer. Biweekly programs can add storm response per visit.
Handyman scope only, contractor handoff when needed
We are not a licensed plumber, electrician, gas fitter, or roofer. When the visit turns up something inside a wall on a supply or drain line, a gas appliance issue, a hardwired electrical fault, or a roof failure that needs replacement, we name the issue in the photo report, recommend a Washington L&I-licensed contractor, and coordinate access for them. The handyman finish work (drywall patch after the plumber's rough-in, paint touch-up, hardware re-install) we do ourselves on a follow-up visit at member rates.
Insured, background-checked, chain-of-custody record
Every Handis tech carries liability insurance and has cleared a background screening before the first visit. For listing programs, the visit log doubles as a chain-of-custody record — date, time, who entered, who left, photo evidence of condition on each visit. Standard practice for property managers and agents who need documentation if an insurance question or a tenant dispute comes up later.
Estimate
Tell us where the property is (Seattle metro, I-90 corridor, Hood Canal, Whidbey, San Juans), which program you are thinking about (vacation, snowbird, vacant listing), the property size and rough age, the cadence you want (weekly or biweekly), and any specifics — second-story plumbing, sump pump, alarm code procedure. We send a clear annual estimate.
What Our Customers Say
Recent property-watch reviews from verified Seattle-area customers and listing agents.
Cabin on Hood Canal, biweekly walkthrough for two years now. The tech caught a slow leak under the kitchen sink in February — a hairline crack in a supply line connector — and had a plumber out the next day. Without those visits the floor would have come up by spring.
We snowbird in Palm Springs October to April. Handis did the full winterize, sent weekly photo reports through the winter, caught a wind-damaged section of fascia after the November storm, and had the house ready the day we landed in May. Heat on, fridge running, mail sorted on the counter.
I manage twelve residential listings between Bellevue and Issaquah. Weekly drive-by plus monthly interior walk on the empty ones, all on a single Tuesday route. The photo report goes straight to the seller and to me — keeps everyone honest about condition, and the chain-of-custody log is what underwriters want to see.
Investor here, three vacant flips in process at any given time. Weekly walk catches squatter activity, kid-kicked-out-window stuff, and the package thieves who use empty driveways as a tell. Cheap insurance against the kind of break-in that adds a month to a flip schedule.
Vacation house up at Crystal Mountain. Six weekends a year, ski-season only. The biweekly walkthrough in summer catches the bear-into-trash event before the smell sets, and the winter storm-response visit cleared a snow load off the deck in February before it pulled the rail loose. Worth the program every year.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about Handis property-watch programs — pricing, what each visit covers, scheduling, storm response, and the contractor handoff.