A home watch service sends a trained, insured person to walk through your empty house on a schedule, usually every week or two, looking for water, pests, mold, break-ins and failed systems, and sends you a report with photos after each visit. In 2026 most companies quote $25 to $75 per visit, priced by the size of the house and how often they come. It is not house sitting, not property management and not an alarm company. Choose one that is insured and bonded, reports with photos after every visit, and can say exactly what happens the moment they find a problem.

What does a home watch service actually do on a visit?

It walks your whole house, inside and out, against a checklist, and writes down what it found. The National Home Watch Association (NHWA) defines home watch as “a visual inspection of a home or property, looking for obvious issues”. The word to hold onto is visual: the person is there to notice, not to repair.

A routine visit takes 30 to 45 minutes. Charlie Posnick of Vermont Home Watch told Seven Days he works a checklist of about 30 items from basement to attic. The service pages of Vermont Home Watch, Mountain Vantage Properties in Asheville and Scotty’s Home Watch in Tucson all cover the same core:

Outside: doors and windows secure, roof, gutters and siding, signs of forced entry, storm or snow damage, pests, yard and pool, mail and packages.
Inside: run the faucets, flush the toilets, look under sinks and at the water heater, check ceilings for stains, smell for mold, test the smoke and CO alarms, read the thermostat, listen to the AC or furnace, open the fridge.
Paper: a report with photos, the date and time, what was normal, what was not, and what they did about it.

Two things a good service does that are easy to miss. It calls you from the house when something is wrong; Home Watch of Arizona says an immediate problem gets a phone call from the property plus an email report. And it will meet your contractors so you do not fly in to let the plumber in, billed by the hour. The full list is in the home watch checklist.

What home watch is not

It is not house sitting, property management, security monitoring or repair work, and paying for one does not get you the others.

Service	What it is	What it does not do
House sitting	Someone lives in your home, feeds the pets, brings in the mail.	No checklist, no report, usually no insurance or bond.
Home watch	A scheduled visual inspection with a written, photographed report.	Does not live there, does not repair, does not rent or collect.
Property management	Rents the home out, handles tenants, rent and repairs, for a percentage.	Built for a rental, not a home nobody rents.
Alarm or security monitoring	Watches sensors and the perimeter, calls the police.	Cannot see a dripping water heater or a dead AC. Never walks inside.
Handyman	Fixes what broke.	Does not visit unless someone calls.

Snowbird Home Watch in Minnesota draws the same lines. Most home watch companies will arrange the handyman, the cleaner and the pool service, but that is coordination, not the fix. The repair is a separate bill from a separate person. The wider picture is at second-home management.

How much do home watch services cost in 2026?

$25–$75per visit — what most home watch companies quote in 2026 (sources below)

Most companies charge per visit, price by square footage, and come weekly or every other week. HomeWatchTools’ June 2026 guide puts the national range at $25 to $75 per visit, which is $150 to $300 a month weekly or $75 to $160 a month every other week. The operator price pages below, all read September 9, 2026, mostly land inside that range.

Region	Company	What the price page says (read Sept 9, 2026)
Florida, Palm Beach	Franklin Home Watch	$40 per visit at 2,000 sq ft, $55 at 5,000 sq ft, plus $5 per extra 1,000 sq ft. Lanai and garage count.
Florida, Port Charlotte to Sarasota	Wright Home Watch	$25 (under 1,000 sq ft) to $50 (4,000 sq ft) per inspection for a house; condos $22 to $45.
Florida, Naples	Homelax	$50 per visit weekly or $60 per visit bi-weekly for 900 to 2,000 sq ft; emergency visit $90.
Arizona, Scottsdale	Home Watch of Arizona	From $50 per visit; no monthly fee; storm inspections at half rate.
Arizona, Tucson	Scotty’s Home Watch	From $25 (townhome), typically $35 (single-family); 10-visit minimum paid up front; extras $50 an hour.
Arizona, west Phoenix	Arizona House Watch	$99 a week plus tax for one weekly visit; monsoon check $25; vendor access $45 an hour, 2-hour minimum.
Carolinas, Charlotte	Reliant Home Watch	$75 per visit basic, $100 premium; 10% off after three months.
Carolinas, coast and mountains	Coastal Carolina Home Watch, Mountain Vantage	No price on the site; both quote after a walk-through.
Cabin country, central Minnesota	Central MN Cabin Watch	$750 for 26 weekly winter visits (Oct 15 to Apr 15), about $29 each; $150 for four visits in a month.
Cabin country, northern Michigan	231 Property Services	$149 a month with bi-weekly winter checks; $249 a month with weekly checks for vacation homes.

How to read the table:

Size sets the visit price. Both Florida rate cards step up by square footage and add $5 per 1,000 sq ft past their top tier.
Frequency sets the monthly bill. A $40 visit is about $173 a month weekly and $87 every other week.
Extras are hourly, $45 to $50 an hour on the pages above: meeting a vendor, a grocery run, opening or closing the house.
Minimums are common, and no price on the site is normal. The coastal Carolina and Asheville operators want to see the house first.

A visit that skips the inside is not a visit. If a quote is well under $25 for a full house, ask what “visit” means. Scotty’s lists “free drive-by checks” as an extra on top of a real inspection, not instead of one. That is the right way round.

How operators build these numbers is at home watch pricing.

How often should someone check an empty house?

Every week if the house can freeze, at least every two weeks anywhere else, and never let a gap pass 30 days without reading your policy first.

The reason is the wording in your insurance. The standard homeowner form, HO-3 (ISO form HO 00 03 10 00, posted by the Nevada Division of Insurance), excludes “vandalism and malicious mischief” and any loss that follows it “if the dwelling has been vacant for more than 60 consecutive days immediately before the loss.” The Insurance Information Institute says most policies use “typically 30 to 60 consecutive days” and tells you to notify the insurer before the house sits empty.

Two words matter. Adjusters read “vacant” as empty of contents and “unoccupied” as nobody home but the furniture still there. A snowbird house with the beds made is unoccupied, not vacant, and usually keeps its coverage. Do not assume your carrier reads it that way. Ask, in writing.

The clause that bites in cold country is freezing. The same form excludes loss from “freezing of a plumbing, heating, air conditioning or automatic fire protective sprinkler system or of a household appliance” unless “you have used reasonable care to: (a) Maintain heat in the building; or (b) Shut off the water supply and drain all systems and appliances of water.” A dated report every week with a photo of the thermostat is what reasonable care looks like on paper. The Institute’s own advice is heat at 55°F and weekly visits.

“Regular checks,” then, means often enough that a burst pipe runs for days, not weeks, and written down every time. Before you go, work through the snowbird departure checklist or, in freeze country, the winterizing checklist. The insurance side in full is at leaving a house empty.

How do you choose a home watch company?

Ask seven questions and expect a straight answer to each.

Are you insured and bonded, and will you send the certificate? NHWA accreditation requires “proof of proper insurance and bonding, which must be maintained continuously” and a criminal background check on the owners. A one-person company can have all of that too. Ask for the paper.
Who holds my key, and how is it labeled? A coded tag with no address, locked up, under a written key-holder agreement.
Do I get a report with photos after every visit, and when? Same day. That is the NHWA’s standard too.
What happens the moment you find a problem? A call from the house, a photo, and your yes before anyone spends your money. Ask whether they can shut the water main.
What is in a visit, and what is extra? The checklist in writing, and the hourly rate for vendor meetings, storm checks, opening and closing.
Who actually comes? The owner or a background-checked employee, ideally the same person every time.
How do I pay, and how do I stop? Per visit or prepaid, the minimum, and the notice to cancel.

Then read the reviews and call one current client.

What does a good report look like?

It is dated and timed, has photos of the things that matter, says what was normal as well as what was not, and arrives the same day.

Date, time in, time out. Arizona House Watch sends an arrival and a departure notice every visit.
Every checklist item marked, not only the problems. “All normal” is a finding too.
Photos of the thermostat, under the sinks, the water heater, the outside, and anything unusual.
A short note in plain words: what was found, what was done, what needs your decision.
Sent as a link or a PDF you can keep, not a text message that scrolls away.

If you would rather have the reports in one place than in a year of emails, House Matters gives owners a free record of the house where a caretaker’s reports, keys, stays and upkeep land, and many one-person home watch operators run their visits on it. Any tool that leaves you a dated, photographed record does the job. An example is at sample home watch report, and a blank one at the visit report template.

What are the red flags?

Any one of these means keep looking.

No insurance certificate, only an assurance.
No report, or a report that is a text saying “all good.”
Keys on a ring with your address on the tag.
No clear answer to “what happens when you find a leak?”
A price with no square footage or frequency behind it.
Reviews that mention missed visits or reports that arrived days late.

How do you find a home watch service near you?

Start with the NHWA directory, then ask the people who already know your street.

The NHWA member directory lists accredited companies by state. The badge means the company showed continuous insurance and bonding, passed a criminal background check on its principals, and cleared a Better Business Bureau check. Accreditation is voluntary and plenty of good operators are not members, so it is a shortcut, not a guarantee. More at NHWA accreditation.

Beyond the directory: your HOA office, the neighbor who is there year round, and your insurance agent all know who shows up. Search for “home watch” plus your town, not “house sitting.” Most operators want a walk-through first, so book it before you leave for the season. The plain definition is at what is home watch.

Questions people ask

Is a home watch service worth it?

Yes, if the house sits empty for more than a few weeks at a time. Twenty-six weekly visits at the $25 to $50 prices above come to roughly $650 to $1,300 for a six-month season, against a leak that runs for three weeks with nobody there.

Is “home watching” or a “house watching service” the same thing?

Yes, they are different names for the same service. The industry settled on “home watch,” and that is the phrase to search with.

Can a neighbor or a family member do this instead?

Yes, if they walk inside on a schedule and write down what they saw, with photos. What they cannot give you is insurance, a bond, or the habit of doing it every week for six months. Hand them the checklist and ask for a dated photo of the thermostat each time.

Do I still need home watch if I have leak sensors and cameras?

Yes. Sensors tell you something happened; they do not shut the valve, smell the mold or notice the roof tile in the yard.

Sources, read September 9, 2026

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