Everything members ask us, answered plainly.

Custom home services, or CHS, is a business model we created in the depths of the COVID struggles, after we noticed that everyday homeowners could use our expertise, reputation, attention and care at least as much as, if not more than, the average landlord. In a world where interest rates have tripled and a generational wealth transfer is underway, the need was obvious. What wasn't as obvious was how quickly we'd get here, and how much the rental market would be struggling, which then motivates even more owners to search for alternative solutions to just going the landlord or forget-about-it route.

It's been built hand in hand with our equally innovative rental housing needs and solutions investments, which are detailed here.

Any homeowner who wants their home looked after consistently by one experienced team. Most often that's owners of vacation and second homes, snowbirds and frequent travelers, owners of a vacant home that isn't ready to rent or sell, families settling an estate or supporting a parent aging in place, owners going through a separation, sellers preparing a home for market, and busy professionals who would rather have one relationship than a dozen. You don't need to live out of town to use it.

Recurring interior and exterior visits with photo reports, mail and package handling, freeze prep, storm prep and post-storm checks, HVAC filter changes, meeting vendors and contractors, repair estimate requests, housing bill payment and reporting, project tracking and budgeting, estate and vacant home oversight, and licensed showings. If it's a housing need that isn't on our price list, you can request a custom quote.

First, you need to decide if you want to be a member, or just want to use our services from time to time. If it's just time to time, you would tell us what you need and we'd quote it, if it isn't already outlined in our standard pricing offers.

If you decide to go the membership route, you want to determine if interior and exterior visits are needed, then how often for each. You can start with 1 per month and add as needed.

After that you would want to review our default service offerings.

Consider if you want us to pick up any duties around collecting estimates and paying housing related bills, utilities, etc.

Finally, consider if you want or need any custom services based on your needs, and request a custom quote in your portal.

You can explore that question in detail here.

No, you do not. Many who contact us are already overseas, and we utilize all the most modern tools necessary to do nearly anything you could possibly need around housing, without you needing to be here.

In most cases you would set a default visit schedule as part of your membership. You can make changes to your membership in your custom portal, and request default or custom services there as well.

Notice never hurts, but it would be rare that we couldn't respond within a couple of business days.

Give us a call, or fill out this quick getting started form. Once we determine your exact needs you'll get a formal quote and simple agreement (just to outline very basic expectations and cover potential problems and liability) that can start as simple as a single exterior home visit and report.

No. We offer a one time, as needed visit option, and for larger jobs we can usually provide some type of quote, though we may require a small payment up front. Members do get priority during severe weather and similar times.

We can help out with any home, and even non-industrial commercial.

Of course not. It's the most common thing that attracts people to our service, but we work with all kinds of interesting situations.

Not unless there's some unusual circumstance or concern about safety. Otherwise our first visit to the home will always be part of a membership or our one time visit offer. If we arrive at a home and feel unsafe or concerned for any reason, we will report what we find without going any further, call emergency services if needed, and potentially schedule a new visit if wanted.

We guarantee transparency, an eye toward safety, quality, and all the positive attributes one would expect from a family owned, 20+ year old company with a stellar reputation across 8 distinct markets.

We also guarantee fair billing, no junk or hidden fees.

We guarantee to keep friction to a minimum and respect our clients' time.

Yes. Our practical approach to property management can streamline all real estate ownership needs.

Our company is well versed in modern technology and works easily with your assistants, family members and advisors.

We don't need to impose on your time and won't try to pump you for more work. In fact we train all of our staff to always be cognizant of how important our clients' time is.

We handle repair discussions, scheduling, and billing in many cases. Most repair contractors are not great at all of these.

We immediately provide a seasoned second perspective and opinion on all potential issues.

We solve the fundamental problem of too many relationships. Even if a repair contractor takes on many other duties, like making sure the pool is maintained, it's still unlikely that they will take them all on as we will. They are also rarely set up to centralize the accounting for their customers. When they do provide all of these expert services well, the cost is far in excess of anything we will ever charge.

Repairmen get tied up on big important jobs and responsiveness, even to their most important customers, will be subdued. Our job is not to get bogged down, but to streamline and provide industry leading consistency.

We can be a helpful resource for your trusted repair contractor as well, so that they can focus on what matters: managing the actual people working on your home.

Technically it is very much property management, but that term has largely come to mean rental management, or property maintenance and oversight. We provide the maintenance and oversight, but also the technical expertise and experience with day to day homeownership challenges that the average repair company lacks.

We don't get involved in marketing a home for rent, long or short term. We don't handle legal leases or contracts. We don't file evictions or collect funds from tenants. We never handle any trust funds in particular, though we do provide bill pay reporting using almost the same standards that state real estate trust accounting requires. Because we must firmly separate our licensed duties, any foray into these specific needs for a single property would require us to formally void the custom home services agreement and replace it with a state sanctioned property management agreement intended for rental management.

We charge the bare minimum that we can justify for the standard service, so we can't spend a lot of extra time sprucing up the many minor issues we come across on our visits. We found that often we would uncover small 20 minute jobs that warranted additional charges due to being pure, uncovered repair needs, but would leave and submit an estimate that required approval and added a lot of friction with little value. The premium package enables us to spend more time on site and handle minor issues such as replacing a blown down screen, blowing leaves out of a corner where they are piling up, or clearing a French drain after a big storm. Clearing fallen branches out of the driveway and generally taking steps to make homes look less vacant. Or, in some cases, we can reduce the number of trips needed for your landscaper. In general we actively look for minor ways that we can contribute and prove the value of our service, and we can do that without asking for additional funds.

Our premium package also includes estimate requests and bill payment services for no additional charge.

It will usually be the same person, but our goal is to maintain a minimum level of service regardless of who might be available at any given time.

If all goes well, and it usually does, we are typically on site for about 30-40 minutes for an interior and exterior visit. From there times vary a lot.

Yes, certainly. We try to avoid the first and last day of the month if possible, but we're flexible outside of extreme weather and major holidays.

Yes. The main point of a recurring visit is to provide a low level of service that allows us to maintain a long term relationship, so it's convenient to add or not add additional needs.

Inside your custom portal.

You'll receive the report inside your owner's portal, and you will also have the option to turn notifications on or off for when they arrive.

For emergencies we might contact 911 if it rises to that level, i.e. a possible break-in. We also call, text and email you as standard policy. We rarely run into emergencies or even time sensitive needs though, so we mostly rely on the reporting to convey our findings, and on customer service and the portal to turn those reports into actions in any way you need.

Inside your portal you'll find contact information for our leadership team, who will handle whatever questions and needs you have.

Yes, we log all of our activity at your home and our standard procedure includes a decent set of photographs available long term.

We always take photos on every visit.

Yes, they will be available within your portal and we can export to a zip file if requested. You have full ownership of your photos.

For most customers, who want low friction security, we use a database storage system through Supabase.

Signing in works like this. There's no password. Enter your email, we email you a 6-digit code, and you type it in to sign in. The code only goes to your inbox, so your email account works as the second factor.

For those who might want higher security we can utilize Microsoft SharePoint.

We take it seriously, but most of what we do isn't extremely sensitive, and we found that the security itself was the largest source of friction that our customers were dealing with, so we have set security to a mid to lower level. You sign in with a code sent to your own email. We do offer a more secure option using Microsoft SharePoint if needed.

If you want to be notified before visits we can do that, but our policy is simply to set a schedule or accept a request and go.

No. We intentionally vary our visits for a few reasons. We consider a few things and will make minor adjustments based on our experience. If severe weather is on tap we might hold off until afterward. For holidays we might make a trip just after, or just before if you will be coming to town. We like to time our visits after events if that makes sense.

In addition, bad actors are often quite observant, and one of the first things they notice is a highly scheduled routine. If they know we come every Thursday then they know they have 6 days of relative privacy.

Certainly, including arming alarms if needed.

Yes, anytime, based on our published pricing found on this site.

Yes we can if we have availability. Our subscription clients are given priority, and of course during extreme weather a lot of people have needs, but we will do our best to accommodate them all. We also offer a one time, no commitment visit to the home as part of a special offer in 2026.

Yes, all of our staff always undergo background checks. We are also a licensed real estate brokerage, so many of our company leaders and staff are also subjected to annual background reporting. We prioritize safety and staff longevity, among other strategies that work hand in hand to ensure our staff represent our company to the highest level at all times.

We utilize a dynamic workforce, including some long trusted contractors who have undergone background checks and in most cases worked with us for years. In most cases, however, these services will be provided by various staff. On site visits are typically handled by our formal field employee techs, who drive work-owned trucks and use work tools and supplies. Desk work is completed using a combination of our leadership team, account management team, and support team, though you will normally have a primary contact within our leadership team.

Carefully and with detail. When you manage thousands of homes you quickly learn the importance of well labeled keys and devices, and we appreciate your support and focus on making sure this part of the process goes smoothly. We can meet, pick them up, or use on site codes and boxes. We can also install combo boxes and digital locks if wanted.

Over our many years managing homes you learn that sometimes the peace of mind that comes from an old fashioned combo box and key is irreplaceable. Batteries die, electronics fail, codes get jumbled. While some of these are possible with combo boxes, they are much less common due to the overall simplicity.

Yes, we should have no problem working with your alarm.

Yes we do. For more complex issues (smart home systems, cameras, etc.) we might charge a bit for building a policy and research, but that's rare and reserved for non-consumer systems in most cases.

Absolutely. It has no effect on what we do.

A legally licensed agent willing to spend up to an hour at a property for whatever needs you may have, MLS lockbox access (requires a licensee), buyer showings, and other services that require a license but are not sales or rentals specifically (though we can handle those too, it's a different contract).

No, we cannot as of now. We will add various options along those lines over time.

Emergencies in particular. Anything that requires a real estate license and isn't simply accessing a lockbox to show a home on a one-off basis; we do offer these services, but it's a completely different service and contract. We don't directly do repairs. We only work on issues that are pretty clearly tied to housing or non-industrial commercial.

We don't do repairs, but if it's a home service we can most likely manage it by bringing in the necessary professionals and resources.

For premium members we will try to repair, buy some time, stabilize and anything else we can in a reasonable amount of time. Otherwise we report on the issue and proceed to handle it based on our agreement and your needs.

For some minor jobs we do the work ourselves, and we'll quote these at any time. If you are subscribed to our bill pay subscription then yes, we can. We also offer one free estimate request per quarter if not.

Yes we can. We won't make formal assessments on quality of work, but we can report on the progress or outcome of a job, handle access, and more.

We do provide a few standard services for hundreds of customers across our markets. Filter delivery and changing is one of the most common and requested, honed over 20+ years managing vacant and occupied homes. You can read more about all the pre-priced standard services that we offer here.

Yes, no problem. These services are right up our alley.

Yes, we offer the option to make a formal request for any service. We'll assess the extent of the need and reach out quickly to get more information or provide a quote.

We do not. We will try to respond quickly if that helps, and we will eventually offer some options, but as of now we are not equipped to make these promises. In general 24 hours will be the fastest you should hope to see a simpler job done. Because our priority as of now is on consistency, communication, and quality, the added resources to be available for potential urgent problems would be a distraction.

Yes, we can run a standard turnover project, budget and accounting to state real estate trust account standards.

Not at the moment, but we can help with any professionals you may need for your gardening needs and more. We do not offer services for pets or animals and don't manage them either.

We don't service aquariums, but we are expert resource managers and can handle the billing and communication if needed.

We utilize an industry leading payment processor through a combination of our customer management software, the international leader HubSpot, which uses another international leader, Stripe, for the financial transaction itself. We have auto draft, so you will not have to manage basic billing.

Yes, we can pay utilities for members of our bill payment plan. The average is a small flat monthly charge plus 10% of bills paid. For some specialty situations we may custom quote a different percentage.

Due to obvious risks, if we are going to take on more than a couple of small bills we will need to collect funds first using your portal, use your credit card or ACH information with vendors directly (with your logged formal approvals), or maintain a custom reserve. After 6 months in a relationship together we can cover much larger amounts, and our goal will be to streamline the process as much as possible so that you eventually receive a single itemized bill detail from us each month, and send a single payment to cover it.

No. We streamline the process but require approval of some type (a pre-authorized general agreement or digital email approval for a direct need) for all costs we might incur on your behalf.

That's great. Because rentals are subject to strict state and federal real estate license laws, we can't combine both services, but it's only a minor admin change. We would need to void the CHS agreement and sign a new formal rental property management agreement.

For the remainder of 2026 there is no fixed term. You can cancel at any time for any reason and we will stop all scheduled appointments or bills waiting to be paid at that time. Uncleared funds will be held for payments already released.

Not for the remainder of 2026.

If you pay for a visit we will provide it, and you can cancel from that point forward for any reason at any time. We don't refund a partial month if you were to downgrade a recurring charge such as the monthly bill payment membership, but that's the extent of your commitment.

Yes, anytime. For the remainder of 2026 you can pause as needed and we'll waive any reactivation fee.

Yes. If you downgrade from bill pay today, that charge won't post again and we will continue to pay bills for the remainder of the month if you like. We don't refund partial months. If you downgrade from premium to regular service, the regular price will be applied for the next visit.

Yes. A referral counts, and we pay it, once your friend has paid for and received their first home visit of any kind.

Refer a friend to Custom Home Services and get a $60 credit toward your own services, or a $40 payment, whichever you prefer. Your 10th and 20th referrals each earn a $250 service credit or a $150 payment. Your 30th earns a full year of base membership free (a $1,200 value) or a $700 payment.

Members will be able to track their referrals in the owner portal.

Yes, for anyone you send us who becomes a Custom Home Services customer. A referral counts, and we pay it, once your friend has paid for and received their first home visit of any kind. No fine print beyond that.

This program is for Custom Home Services customers only. Real estate license law doesn't let us pay owners referral fees for people who become rental or sales clients, so those don't count toward it.