Vacant Listing Checks
Handis vacant listing checks are weekly drive-by and interior walks for empty residential listings on the books of Seattle-area real-estate agents, property managers, and investors — from $600 a year for a single residential listing on a weekly drive-by to $1,800 for a multi-property portfolio contract. This is the residential referral channel — single-family homes, townhomes, small-multifamily under residential management. We are not a commercial-building service. The visit catches what an empty listing quietly does on its own — squatter activity, kid-kicked window, package-thief target practice, the slow plumbing leak that nobody is reporting because nobody is living there. Same vetted handyman every visit, dated photo report with chain-of-custody header, log archived month over month.
Service
How Vacant Listing Checks Works
Five steps every Handis vacant-listing visit runs through — exterior drive-by walk, lockbox or smart-lock entry with chain-of-custody log, interior walk with plumbing visual, mail and package retrieval, and a dated same-day photo report with a chain-of-custody header.
Exterior Drive-By Walk
Tech walks the perimeter — lawn condition, MLS sign upright, doors and windows visible, any signs of forced entry (pried frames, broken seals, footprints in the flower bed), package-thief tells (week-old flyers, packages on the porch). Photos of the front, sides, and any anomaly. About 10 to 15 minutes for the drive-by-only visit.
Lockbox or Smart-Lock Entry With Chain-of-Custody Log
For interior visits, entry is logged — date, time, technician, lockbox code or smart-lock single-use code, total time on property. The entry log is part of the photo report. Codes are never shared outside the assigned tech and the route backup.
Interior Walk With Plumbing Visual
Lights tested in each room. Plumbing visual under each sink, water heater pan, every toilet base for the slow weep. Thermostat reading and adjustment to the showing-schedule setting. HVAC vent dust visual. Pest indicators and moisture stains. The same plumbing-first attention as the vacation-home walk because an empty listing has the same slow-leak risk profile as a vacation cabin.
Mail, Packages, Curb-Appeal Reset
Mail collected and held for the listing agent. Packages on the porch brought in. MLS flyer holder restocked if you supplied flyers. Bins pulled back from the curb after pickup days. The house looks lived-in from the street so it does not draw the empty-house signal.
Same-Day Photo Report With Chain-of-Custody Header
A PDF (or shared link) with the chain-of-custody header (date, time, technician name, lockbox code used, total time on property), dated exterior and interior photos, plumbing visual, any anomalies flagged, and a one-paragraph summary. Lands in the agent's or property manager's inbox the same evening. Reports archived; any prior visit pulled on request.
Vacant Listing Checks Pricing
Per-property pricing on portfolio contracts (three or more residential listings on a single weekly route) applies a discount that scales with route size. Properties outside the standard Seattle metro radius carry a travel premium quoted before the contract starts. Photo report and chain-of-custody log included in every visit. Request a free estimate for an accurate quote.
Tell us how many listings, where, and what visit pattern you need — we will quote the route.
Why Seattle Agents and Property Managers Book Handis
A vacant residential listing fails in specific, predictable ways. The package on the porch tells anyone driving by that nobody is home. The forced-entry footprint in the flower bed gets noticed only after the second incident. The slow toilet leak runs for three weeks before the showing buyer flushes it and the staging carpet is gone. The squatter gets in through the back-fence gate that was left unlatched at the last open house. The visit catches all of this early — and the chain-of-custody record means the seller, the agent, the property manager, and the insurance underwriter all have the same documentation when a question comes up later. Same handyman every week, same route, same photo report, same archived log.
Estimate
Tell us how many residential listings, where they are (Seattle metro area, Eastside, South Sound, Snohomish), the visit pattern you want (weekly drive-by, weekly interior, biweekly interior), the access method (lockbox, smart lock, key), and any property-specific notes (staging in place, vacant land, listing under contract). We send a clear annual estimate for the route.
Customer Reviews
Vacant listing checks reviews from real Handis customers — Seattle-area agents, property managers, and investors.
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.
Estate listing in West Seattle, took six months to close. Family was in three different states; nobody was driving by the house. Weekly drive-by plus biweekly interior walk caught a slow leak under a bathroom sink in the second month — got a plumber out, saved the floor, and the listing closed without a remediation hit. The chain-of-custody log made the trustees comfortable.
Two townhomes I list regularly between tenants. The interior walk catches the weird stuff — the smoke detector that started chirping after a tenant left, the dryer-vent screen that filled with lint nobody mentioned, the toilet flapper that started running on Day 4 of vacancy. All caught and reported, all small fixes, no surprises at the showing.
Property manager for a small portfolio of single-family rentals in Tukwila and Burien. The drive-by alone has cut break-in incidents and squatter complaints by something close to half year over year. Tech runs the same Thursday route; tenant complaints about response time dropped because we are catching condition issues before tenants do.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about Handis vacant listing checks.