Northway Home LLCHome watch

The service, defined

What home watch is, what it is not, and what it costs.

Owners find the phrase before they find the service. This page is the plain version: what home watch is, what it is not, who it is for, how often it should happen and what it costs on the Northway corridor.

In short

Home watch is a scheduled, in-person visual check of a house nobody is living in, documented and photographed on every visit so a burst pipe, a dead furnace or a break-in is found in days rather than months. It is not property management, which handles tenants and rentals, and it is not a home inspection, which is a licensed evaluation of a building’s condition. On the Northway corridor it costs $250, $500 or $1,000 a month depending on whether the house is visited twice a month, weekly or twice a week.

Published

A lakefront house with a dock, seen from the water on a clear day

01What it is

Someone at the house, on a schedule, with a list.

Home watch is a scheduled, in-person visual check of a house nobody is living in, with the findings written down and photographed every time. It exists so that a burst pipe, a failed furnace or a break-in is found in days rather than months. It is not property management, which handles tenants and rentals, and it is not a home inspection, which is a licensed evaluation of a building’s condition.

The word that matters is documented. A visit that nobody wrote down did not happen, as far as you or your insurer can tell. A home watch visit from Northway Home LLC walks a written 24-line checklist in the same order every time and does the following.

  1. 01Walks the full exterior perimeter and photographs the roofline, gutters, siding, decks, dock and grounds from the ground.
  2. 02Confirms every door, window, garage and outbuilding is secure, the alarm is set, and there is no sign of entry.
  3. 03Walks the basement and mechanical room for standing water, and looks over the water heater, sump, visible supply lines and shutoffs.
  4. 04Confirms the thermostat setting and that the furnace or boiler is running, and records the interior temperature and humidity.
  5. 05Runs the fixtures, refills the traps, collects the mail, and sets the house back the way the owner wants it.
  6. 06Writes it all down, attaches the photographs to the checklist lines, and posts a report the same day.

02What it is not

Four things it gets confused with.

A home inspection
New York licenses compensated residential home inspectors, and a home inspection is a licensed evaluation of a building’s systems and condition, usually done once, at a sale. Home watch is caretaking: a visual property check, repeated on a schedule, that observes and documents. It tells you what was seen and photographs it. It does not evaluate the condition of a system or certify that anything is safe, and when something calls for a professional opinion it brings in a licensed one.
Property management
Property management is about tenants and rentals: marketing the house, handling guests, collecting rent, turning it over between stays. It is priced as a percentage of rental income. If you are not renting the house out, it is a service you do not use.
Estate management
Household staff, grounds crews, a full calendar and a single point of contact for all of it, priced to match. Right for a large property that is run like one. More than a lake house that stands empty most of the year needs.
A neighbor or a drive-by caretaker
Free, or nearly so, and worth what it costs on the day something goes wrong inside the house. A drive-by does not open the door, run a fixture or read a thermostat, there is no record afterwards, and the arrangement ends when the neighbor moves.

03Who it is for

Any house that is empty more than it is full.

The weekend house on the lake

Used a dozen weekends a year and empty the rest, which on the Northway corridor means empty for the whole of the winter that does the damage.

The seasonal camp

Closed in October and opened in May, on a road the plow reaches late, with the well pump and pressure tank somewhere cold.

The track-season house in Saratoga

Full for six weeks in summer and empty for ten months. Mail builds up and a porch light burns out, and the house starts to look empty, which is the one thing you do not want.

Waterfront with a boathouse and outbuildings

More roof, more mechanical, more shoreline for the ice to work on, and a week without anyone looking is a week too long.

04How often

Weekly, for most houses on the corridor.

The right cadence follows how long the house can safely go without anyone noticing. In February a supply line can freeze within two days of the heat stopping, so for a house that stands empty through the winter, weekly is the cadence that catches the failure while it is still a plumber and an afternoon.

Two visits a month
A well-built home you visit often, in a season you trust.
Weekly visits
The house most owners have, used a dozen weekends a year and empty the rest.
Twice-weekly visits
Waterfront, a boathouse, outbuildings, staff, or a house that simply cannot have a bad week.

05Choosing one

Seven questions to ask any home watch company.

Including us. The answers separate a service from a favor, and every one of ours is written down on this site.

  1. 01Ask who will actually walk the house. One named person, with a backup who also knows it, or whoever is free that morning.
  2. 02Ask to see the checklist before you hire anyone. If there is no written list, every visit is a different visit.
  3. 03Ask whether photographs are attached to the specific items they belong to, and whether you can look at last winter’s next to this one.
  4. 04Ask what happens when something is found at nine at night: who calls you, what they are allowed to do before you answer, and how it is recorded.
  5. 05Ask how keys, codes and alarm registrations are held, and who else can see them.
  6. 06Ask whether the price is published and what is billed separately, so the monthly figure is the monthly figure.
  7. 07Ask whether the record of the house is yours if you leave or sell, and how you would get it.

06Pricing

What home watch costs on the corridor.

Property Care

$250/ month

Two visits a month

Home Stewardship

$500/ month

Weekly visits

Estate

$1,000/ month

Twice-weekly visits

Every plan includes the same checklist, photographs, dashboard and named steward; the price follows how often we come. These are the prices for a house up to 4,000 square feet under roof. Everything outside the scheduled visits is $95 an hour, as used. Every plan in detail

07Service area

Home watch, town by town.

08Questions

Questions about home watch.

The ones owners ask before they know what to call the service.

A home watch service visits a house nobody is living in on a fixed schedule, walks a written checklist inside and out, photographs what it finds, and reports to the owner every time. Its purpose is to find a problem, such as a burst pipe, a failed furnace, a roof leak or a break-in, in days rather than months, and to leave a record of the house’s condition over time.

Property management is about tenants: marketing a rental, handling guests, collecting rent and turning the house over, usually priced as a percentage of rental income. Home watch is about an empty house: scheduled checks, documentation and a person to call when something goes wrong, priced as a fixed monthly fee. If you are not renting the house out, property management is a service you do not use.

A neighbor or a caretaker who drives past sees the outside of the house. A home watch visit opens the door, runs the fixtures, reads the thermostat, walks the basement and the mechanical room, photographs everything and writes it down, and the record survives a change of caretaker. The difference shows up the day something goes wrong inside the house.

No. New York licenses compensated residential home inspectors, and we do not hold that license or offer that service. Home watch is caretaking: a visual property check, observation and documentation. We tell you what we saw and photograph it. We do not evaluate the condition of a system or certify that anything is safe. When something needs a professional opinion, we bring in a licensed one.

Weekly is the cadence most second-home owners on the Northway corridor choose, and the one that catches a winter failure before it becomes a loss. Twice-weekly suits waterfront with a boathouse and outbuildings, or a house that cannot afford a bad week. Two visits a month suits a well-built house that is visited often, in a season you trust.

On the Northway corridor from Saratoga Springs to Lake George, Northway Home LLC charges $250 a month for two visits a month, $500 a month for weekly visits, or $1,000 a month for twice-weekly visits, for a house up to 4,000 square feet under roof, outbuildings included. Extra visits, such as storm checks and seasonal opening and closing, are $95 an hour. Most home watch companies in the region quote after a visit rather than publishing prices.

A half-inch supply line runs at about six gallons a minute, so a week between one weekend and the next is more than sixty thousand gallons into a house. The difference between a plumber and a general contractor is usually the number of days before someone noticed. Many homeowner policies also carry a vacancy or unoccupancy clause and some insurers ask that an empty house be checked at a set interval; read your policy or ask your agent what yours requires.

Start with a walk around your property.

Two hours, at the house, at no charge. You get an honest read on what the house needs and a written scope and price before anyone asks you to sign anything.

Book a free walk-throughSee the checklist