For good reason, Minnesotans love to spend the winter months in Florida and Arizona. But who watches their homes while they're gone? Enter the Minnesota Home Watch Collaborative.
They don't focus on just snowbirds or homes, they take care of expats and cabins too, says Tamara Nugteren with the Home Watch Collaborative.
"Thinking about anyone on a lake that has a second home, and all of those cabins sitting empty all winter long," Nugteren says. "And there's a lot of break-ins at places like that. So it's not just, you know, right here in the metro that we need to worry about."
The collaborative doesn't just do a drive-by check either. They're very thorough.
"Once we're in someone's home, we have a digital checklist that we use," Nugteren explains. "We have a software that we use and we run through that and we check yes, no, or if there's an issue. And we can take photos as we go. So as we leave a client's home, we'll send them a digital report of what we see."
In other words, they give their clients peace of mind.
The Minnesota Home Watch Collaborative is five women, with five businesses, all serving different areas.
Nugteren explains that it's a full-service commitment for home owners.
"We're looking for anything that is problematic," she says. "We're checking doors to make sure they're still locked, because we don't want to walk into a home where there's been a break-in. So we do the exterior first. Then we go to the interior. We're looking for sights, sounds. Moisture is always an issue."
She said they'll also replace dead batteries, check for rodents, turn the water on and off, run the dishwasher and a plethora of other tasks that give homeowners some peace while they're gone.