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EP # 81 The Truth About Home Watching: Myths, Misconceptions, and Professional Standards
Have you ever wondered what happens to your home when you're gone for months at a time? The truth might surprise you. Professional Home Watch is far more than just checking that your doors are locked—it's a comprehensive system of protection for what is likely your most significant financial investment.
Diane from Home Watch Academy brings 19 years of industry experience to this eye-opening conversation about the critical difference between professional home monitoring and what she calls "hobby home watchers." As she explains, untrained individuals who claim to watch homes often miss crucial signs of potential damage or inadvertently cause problems through improper home management. Larry from Hoosier Home Watch Services shares a shocking story of observing a supposed "professional" who simply sat in his car rather than conducting a proper inspection—a practice that leaves homeowners vulnerable to devastating damage.
The consequences of improper home watching can be severe. One particularly alarming example involves a lawsuit where an untrained watcher incorrectly set a thermostat, creating perfect conditions for mold growth. Such mistakes lead to expensive remediation costs often not fully covered by insurance—especially since many insurance companies deny claims without proper documentation of professional home inspections.
Many homeowners mistakenly believe smart home technology eliminates the need for professional monitoring, but as our experts explain, technology complements rather than replaces trained human inspection. During power outages—common in Florida, "the lightning capital of the world"—this technology fails entirely, leaving homes vulnerable.
The Home Watch Academy certification process stands as a gold standard in an unregulated industry, that it is recognized and respected by homeowners, service providers and industry professionals. Ensuring homeowners can find Certified Home Watch Reporters who undergo background checks, maintain proper insurance, and commit to ongoing education. For anyone with a seasonal property, the advice is clear: interview multiple Certified Home Watch Reporters using FindHomeWatch.com before making your selection. Your home deserves nothing less than professional protection.
HOME WATCH ACADEMY
Your Home Watch Professionals
Diane Pisani
SWFL
239-707-4296
Diane@YourHWP.com
Education website: www.HomeWatchAcademy.com
Corporate website: www.YourHWP.com
HOOSIER HOME WATCH SERVICES
Larry Meek
239-910-0767
Serving: Cedar Lake, Crown Point, Dyer, Schererville and Saint John.
larry@hoosierhomewatchservice.com
It's time to check out your neighbors on the Good Neighbor podcast, where we bring good vibes, great neighbors and local businesses in Southwest Florida together. Here's your host, Cabo Jim Schaller.
Speaker 2:Welcome. Good Neighbors, episode number 81 of the Good Neighbor podcast. Today we have two good neighbors. We have Diane from HomeWatch Academy and Larry from Hoosier HomeWatch Services. Welcome.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thank you, jim.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pleasure to have you guys on the show and for you to share your stories with our listeners. So, without further ado, let's start with Diane. Why don't you share a little bit about what you do?
Speaker 3:I would be happy to. I am the founder of the HomeWatch Academy and I've been in the profession and industry of HomeWatch for over 19 years now, which I think either makes me a dinosaur or an innovator. I'm not sure which, but let's go with innovator, Is that okay?
Speaker 2:We like that, we like that, but your arms are longer than a dinosaur, that's why Exactly?
Speaker 3:That's a little bit better. In a nutshell, I, with a business partner, owned and operated a home watch company for over 15 years, and that was in Naples, florida, and recognized some challenges with the industry just a couple of years really after we got started, and it wasn't even an industry back then. It was truly hobby home watchers, neighbors doing favors and very, very fragmented. So in 2008, I conducted my very first home watch training program with the intention of giving folks the basics on HomeWatch, had a fabulous classroom in Naples Florida for many years and HomeWatch Academy went to an online e-learning version around 2021. So we're a few years into e-learning. So now we have a nationwide reach.
Speaker 2:Love it, love it, and you're doing great things with that. But let's back up your story a little bit. How do you decide to get another HomeWatch business?
Speaker 3:Well, that's a good one. I've been an entrepreneur and self-employed since 1986, after leaving my time in corporate America with the telephone company Indiana Bell. I'm from Northwest Indiana, I moved to Southwest Florida and I always say that I didn't find HomeWatch. Homewatch found me and the real estate professional that I rented from said Diane, you would make a great HomeWatch and concierge person. And I said, okay, I thought you only had a concierge at a hotel and what in the bejeebers is HomeWatch? And you know what? Honestly, it's customer service. I believe we're all in the same world of customer service and it just depends where we put our energy and our expertise. Responsibility of watching over seasonal homes is a very big deal. I co-owned and ran the company for over 15 years and then the training got underway and, entrepreneurially, my world is rocked every single day because I help very talented people launch and grow home watch businesses, which is why we invited Larry to join us today.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and Larry, you're actually in Indiana right. Absolutely, and Larry, you're actually in Indiana right.
Speaker 4:I am. I'm in St John, indiana. As Diane mentioned, she's formerly of Indiana. This is not intended, it's simply by coincidence. I started in Fort Myers and joined Diane in her training back way back in 2018. My wife, terry, and I took her training course at that time.
Speaker 2:Wow, very good, and so you've been through the academy right.
Speaker 4:Correct. Let me just share a little quick story with you, if I may. Jim, when we signed up to take Diane's training back in 2018, of course we were living in Fort Myers and driving to Naples for our first day of class. I told my wife. I said I don't think this lady is going to be able to teach me anything about how to take care of a home After all, I've bought and sold nine houses while I transferred around in corporate America and about midday, at the lunch break, I turned to my wife and said boy was I wrong. It was an immense amount of education and the weekend was jam-packed with her training and outside speakers that came in and added great value to the training course.
Speaker 2:Very good. She's very knowledgeable, that's for sure. So let's touch on challenges, whether personally or professionally, but number one getting involved in this industry and starting a business for yourself, but then starting the academy as well.
Speaker 3:Oh, challenges, challenges, that's always a good one. I said in a recent interview that I did one of the things one of my superpowers is I don't have the word failure in my dictionary, so sometimes it's a challenge to stay focused. I don't really see Jim anything as a challenge. I see what I do, in all honesty, as a privilege because, like Larry I mean he's we don't have enough time to really talk about his whole entire background. But here is a rock star, polished professional who is making a career change at whatever point in their lives, and these are the folks that now are taking care of other people's homes. So my challenge, I guess, is to make sure that I deliver to them, and that's that's probably a good way of putting it. Huh, larry, yeah, I think so, because I want to keep delivering to you guys. I don't. I never rest on my laurels. I'm always learning, because that's my responsibility as an educator and mentor, if you will.
Speaker 3:But the challenge sometimes is just keeping up, because our industry changes all the time and anybody who knows me knows one of my big honker pet peeves is sometimes home watch companies will say oh, we watch your home as if it's our own. It's like no, you don't. You are not going through your home every week with a flashlight and a hygrometer and a moisture meter. You're just not doing that. So we are watching the homes of our clients much better than we would watch our own homes, if you will, and because that's our place of work. And I will segue into challenge, here's a challenge Homeowners don't understand why we are so important, key willy-nilly to a neighbor or a friend. You've got to have a professional who's trained, certified, does the right documentation, and I will just bet that Larry might have at least one story to share with what really can happen in a home.
Speaker 4:Well, thank you, diane. I love to tell this story. I got started in this business when I had a neighbor while living in Fort Myers that was telling me about this great home watch person they had and that it was only $20 a visit. And I said what does a person do for $20 a visit? And they said, oh, he does this check, he has a checklist, he visits the home on a regular basis and he calls me and lets me know if there's anything going on.
Speaker 4:So I started watching this person come to my neighbor's home and as he sat in the car on his cell phone for about 10 minutes, I surmised that was the extent of the HomeWatch visit because he left. And so I called my friend when he returned from being up north and said how did that HomeWatch experience work out for you? Because what I saw was a guy sitting in the car on his telephone and he said, oh, he sent me this great report and he showed me a one-page handwritten note that said all is okay. And I said this just can't be what HomeWatch is all about. And that's when we started doing our investigation into HomeWatch and found Diane.
Speaker 2:And it's more about the house, our investigation into HomeWatch and found Diane and it's more about the house still standing right.
Speaker 4:You got to go in the house and see what's going on inside there. Right, you got to kick the tires, as they say.
Speaker 3:Yeah, hence I mean, hence the term. You know hobby HomeWatchers or friends or neighbors doing favors and everything. But what really drives me from the beginning and starting the training and everything, was that I very quickly saw how underserved the seasonal homeowners are and how flat out taken advantage of they are. So I, you know, us Midwestern people, we do not like to see people be taken advantage of, that's for sure, and it's just wrong. It's just wrong.
Speaker 3:And sometimes the hobby home watcher might be well-meaning but they don't know what they don't know and they can cause damage by setting the thermostat wrong. We've seen lawsuits against people that thought they knew it all, and my term for that is people think they're too cool for school. And actually it was somebody just a few years ago and they thought they were doing everything right. They even took pictures when they were making the visit. They took a picture of the thermostat. Well, that was one of the biggest mistakes right there. They took a picture of the thermostat and here in Florida we have to be very careful how we set it, because you can either put the fan in the on position or the auto position. If you put it in the on position it will keep recirculating the air. That might sound like a good idea, but, larry, would you agree that that could turn your house into a science experiment?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. If the home is full of moisture and you're recirculating the air that's full of moisture, you're recirculating moisture you need to put it in the auto position and allow the HVA system to do its job, which is to dehumidify the home, remove the moisture and keep it cool and people make that mistake all the time.
Speaker 3:In this case, because she took a picture of it and once the homeowner filed legal action, she put the nail in her own coffin. And for anybody that doesn't know about microbial growth, which will be a humidity bloom, which will turn into mold, this is not a $500 or $5,000 remediation. This is tens of thousands. And guess what? Even if the homeowner has mold coverage, it's not going to cover very much at all. That's the biggie. So, larry and I and our team of certified home watch reporters, we exist to educate the homeowner so they make good decisions, and it should never be a price motivated decision. We're not like the cheapies out there, the homeowners, so they make good decisions and it should never be a price-motivated decision. We're not like the cheapies out there. We're here that are doing real work.
Speaker 2:Our graduates, like Larry, and our reporters they've invested big bucks in training and they're committed to ongoing training, and that's a big, big deal too, absolutely, and we touched on the obvious. Let's touch a little bit more about the myths or misconceptions surrounding what you do.
Speaker 3:Larry, what do you think about that one?
Speaker 4:Well, I think people, as you said, diane, just don't realize what HomeWatch is. Think about this your home is probably your most important financial investment you'll make as an individual, probably your most important financial investment you'll make as an individual and you want to trust that home with someone that is one uneducated, not trained, not insured and, most importantly, not accountable for what may go wrong in your home. By hiring a professional, a certified HomeWatch professional, you eliminate 90% of that problem. Home watch professional, you eliminate 90% of that problem and you can be assured that if you're away on vacation.
Speaker 3:You'll have peace of mind while you're away. We are taught what to look for, we know how to look for the damage and our job is to discover potential damage or obvious issues in the early stages, before it becomes a disaster. And anybody in Florida goodness gracious, almost anybody in the United States now there have been so many disasters that have taken homes. The insurance companies do not wake up in the morning, have a meeting. How are we going to pay claims, truth be told, they're going to say, how can we deny claims?
Speaker 3:And another kind of dramatic situation was I had a gal take my training many, many moons ago and she was basically a hobby home watcher. She was taking money for the service, not properly insured and certainly not trained and pretty darn much doing a great job, and she discovered water damage in one of the condos that she was watching, reported it to the homeowner, the insurance claim was filed, the insurance adjuster came out and she gave him access to the home and one of the questions that the insurance people asked the homeowner was do you have somebody watching the house? It's like, yeah, I have a home watch person. It's like, okay, show me the reports. And the homeowner said reports. It's like uh, show me the, show me the reports. It's like and the homeowner said reports. It's like yeah, oh, she calls me after every visit, claim denied.
Speaker 2:And this is what larry and I mean about educating the homeowners they need to know this absolutely, and and you kind of touched on it a little bit too about talking about the, the newer technology and preparing yourself and equipping yourself with proper tools. Has there been a lot changing in the industry lately?
Speaker 3:Well, for the dinosaur that I am, I was carrying a flip phone when I started HomeWatch, so we certainly didn't even have HomeWatch software back then. We now have software, choices of software, which is rock star. We've got the technology with our phones. Things are time time, data, timestamped and all that. And when Larry referred to the HomeWatch guy, that didn't even go into the home because a lot of the even the earlier softwares were GPS enabled and that's what people would do. They knew that their software would show that they were at the home, but some of them were such scoundrels they didn't even get out of the car. And that is unacceptable to me and Larry, and to you, Jim, and to everybody.
Speaker 4:The new technology allows us to take photographs while on property. If we detect an issue, see an issue, we can take a photograph of it. We can denote and annotate the photograph, make notes to the file. We can show you exactly what we visually see while we're on property and call it to your attention. Then we can add an action item to that report. It's highlighted at the top of the report when you receive it via email and open it so that, in summary, you can glance and see what the issues, if any, existed, were in your home on this visit.
Speaker 2:And you talked about that. You know that's what makes Home Watch Academy unique, in the sense that it, you know, you are training your people, you're giving them procedures, you're giving them guidelines and what to look for and how to report it back to the homeowners as well, too correct.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Now here's another big myth also oh, I have a smart home, I don't need HomeWatch. Nothing could be further from the truth. A smart home is fine, but I guess I'll say this somewhat delicately. A smart home is fine, but I guess I'll say this somewhat delicately. The home, the smart home, is only as smart as the person who's pushing the buttons on the smart home equipment. And if, if, if the homeowner's not educated about the settings or about anything on the equipment they can, they can make an unintentional mistake that could cause damage to their home. But we work very seamlessly hand-in-hand with all of the existing and upcoming technology. Neither replaces the other, and that's pretty darn cool.
Speaker 2:And it is technology. So, hey, you know we get storms down here quite often. Power does go out right, and that technology doesn't necessarily work. Power does go out right and that technology doesn't necessarily work when the power is out right.
Speaker 3:You mean here in the lightning capital of the world.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly Right.
Speaker 4:I love it.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about the certification process that you put in your students through and future home watchers through.
Speaker 3:Okay, I appreciate that very, very much. Here's a very, very interesting thing, and it almost amazes me still to this day that home watch is not regulated, especially in my home state of Florida, which has probably the most per capita home watch companies out there. So the state does not regulate us and in all honesty and I'll say this again tongue in cheek here Somebody who's going to give me a manicure and pedicure has to jump through more hoops than a home watch person has to with the state, and that's just crazy. Do I think that regulation and licensing and the like solves every problem? Absolutely positively not.
Speaker 3:We could take a whole two-hour podcast and talk about trades that are credentialed that still have scoundrels in them. So we're self-regulated At the Home Watch Academy. The company is all about training, certification and success. So the training is a foundation. These folks that start a company without training or join a professional organization before they're trained, that's kind of maddening to me, because you haven't done the things in order and you make very, very different decisions when you're educated With our certification. It's available only to graduates of the Home Watch Academy. We don't have any different silly levels of membership for people who are untrained or honoring past experience in that, because why would you honor past experience if they make boo-boos in that too? But so the certification is for our folks exclusively, and I stand before you thinking that it's a great choice, or actually the best choice for the homeowners, because not only do we do the background check, make sure that our people have insurance and all the other credentials, but they're signed up and committed to ongoing education.
Speaker 3:Much of that happens in the platform of the HomeWatch Academy. We do live training calls, pop-up live events, and the learning never ends. And I just have to tell you that, as long as I've been in this industry, we still learn new stuff all the day. Larry is one of our folks that's on our weekly educational calls, and you've been doing HomeWatch for a while, larry. You're still learning too. These things change.
Speaker 4:I learn something new every day. Technology changes in the home, how it's interpreted and applied to conditioning the home. Jim, one thing I wanted to say about this certification that Diane keeps referring to for a person in the field doing the watches. I want my homeowners to know I am proficient in applying the highest standards in the industry while we're taking care of your home. We are fully insured, we are fully bonded, we're reliable and we provide comprehensive care while you're away.
Speaker 2:And that's what you want watching your home, somebody who's been through and knows what to look for and do it properly, not the guy that sits in the car and writes a report, right.
Speaker 3:Those kinds of things are just insane, just insane. So with my longevity in the industry, I'm very proud to say that because I've been working with the different trades and everything for years that our certification, the designation of Certified Home Watch Reporter, is recognized and respected not only by the homeowners but also by service providers and other professionals in the home services industry and I wear that proud. I've had business folks do networking meetings, meetings, or you know HomeWatch focused networking meetings, and you get a lot of people there, some that are trained and untrained, and my proud moments are where they, when they come up to me and say, diane, I can tell which one are yours and that's. That's a. That's a big compliment. But to speak of the HomeWatch business owners, compliment.
Speaker 3:But to speak of the HomeWatch business owners, they come from the most diverse background, every age group imaginable. When I first started training I would even advertise, you know, baby boomers serving baby boomers, because that was the avatar back then. But I've got you know 60s, 50s, 40s, 30s, 20s, everything. My youngest guy when he started was like 19 years old. I've got business partners, husband, wife teams, father son teams, family teams, home watch divisions of large companies, everything. So it's a rockstar business opportunity and a great business to start, whether it's a main business or an encore or complimentary career.
Speaker 2:And you're doing things the right way and educating people and through the academy and and doing the customers or the homeowners a great service by watching their house properly and reporting back to them. How would our listeners go about contacting you if they had questions, needed to have their home watched or wanted to join the academy?
Speaker 3:the easiest way is my main corporate site, which is at your hwpcom, so it's the letters y-o-u-r. YourHWP. com. From there there's information for the homeowners. There's information for people who want to start a home watch company and for homeowners that are looking for a home watcher. The website is findhomewatchcom. That will direct them to the certified home watch reporter member directory. They can enter their zip code or their community and interview the folks that serve their area.
Speaker 3:And in a lot of things in life and business I encourage everybody to practice the rule of three. So I say interview at least three of the home watchers. And some time ago I had a homeowner call and say you know, diane, I did exactly what you told me to do. I interviewed three of your people and now I have a real problem. I said what's your problem? He goes I like all three, and I didn't miss a beat.
Speaker 3:And I said well, who do you have the most in common with? And he said that would be Greg, because we both served in the Air Force and I learned enough by interviewing your other home watchers that if Greg went on vacation or had an emergency or something that they would help fill in, and that was like a proud HomeWatch moment for me, and I get these kinds of comments with regularity, and one of my HomeWatch Academy slogans is that it's not just training, it's a career long resource. But more importantly, we're building a culture, and that's a culture of colleagues, not competitors. We're collaborators and not competitors. That is what I'm the most proud of. We don't sweat the small stuff. We know there is way, way more than enough business for everybody. I could bring on another 250 home watchers in Naples, florida, tomorrow, sarasota, wherever and there would be more than enough business for all of them.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it. You guys have been doing great things watching people's homes, educating people properly. I want to say you guys are being great neighbors as well. I appreciate your time today and I hope to see you out in the community here soon.
Speaker 3:Thank you for your time. Jim and Larry, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 4:You're welcome and thank you, Jim.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast, bringing together good vibes, great neighbors, local businesses in Southwest Florida. To nominate your favorite local business to be featured on the show, go to CaboWaboJim. com. That's CaboWaboJim. com, or call 239-427-4100.