Have we reached the end of the DIY era?
New home subscription services aim to put your honey-do list on autopilot. By signing up for regularly scheduled services that monitor and maintain important systems, homeowners will save money, hassle and headaches, the reasoning goes, while steady cash flow helps contractors stay in business. Win-win, right?
Maybe, maybe not. Even as companies of all sizes, from national retailer Lowe’s to local contractors, are pitching subscriptions, some contractors who waded in early have tempered their enthusiasm, finding that consumers are wary of hidden costs and conflicts.
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“I love the concept, but the bulk of my customers, who own houses worth $350,000 to $750,000, want the services on their own terms and on their own time,” John Gelfusa told Straight Arrow. He is president of HomeWorks CGO Inc., a Michigan remodeling firm.
Five years ago, Gelfusa piloted a home maintenance subscription for time-pressed professionals, figuring they had better things to do on Saturday mornings than replace furnace filters. Meanwhile, he thought, when his technicians showed up to fulfill subscription maintenance for middle-income clients, their presence might open the door to more substantial projects.
It hasn’t worked out as expected. A few homeowners signed up and stuck with amenity-laden subscriptions, but most mid-tier homeowners “‘said ‘thanks, we’ll call when we need you,’“ said Gelfusa.
Still, the logic of a home maintenance subscription is so compelling that companies keep jiggling the lock, trying to figure out the magic combination.
Lowe’s just introduced a subscription it is positioning as a way to avoid ladders. For $99 annually, Lowe’s will send a technician twice a year to address seven tasks, such as replacing light bulbs in ceiling fixtures. Lowe’s declined to comment on specifics.
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Meanwhile, tech startup Casa claims to merge the surveillance, scheduling and sourcing of home maintenance and management into a dashboard powered by AI.
The subscription model is irresistible because it looks like it ought to be in sync with the seasonal rhythms of home maintenance, said Jackie Swanson, a managing partner with Gartner Consulting, a strategy and technology consulting firm.
Each season is ushered in by predictable chores, from clearing gutters of autumn leaves to confirming the air conditioner is ready to cool the house in summer. Anything that recurs invites a subscription model, she said.
Long-term demographic trends buoy ambitions for home subscriptions: the help that aging Americans need to continue living in their homes; the fact that 40% of houses are more than 50 years old; and, especially, the overlap between those two.
Swanson predicts the home maintenance subscription market could reach $9.1 billion by 2033. Local firms that build subscription revenue now will be well positioned when the industry inevitably consolidates, Swanson said.
“The winners will be platforms that combine smart home integration, AI-driven diagnostics and trusted local labor networks,” she said.
Drones for homes: That’s the formula that Aleks Krylov has discovered. He launched Stern Gutters in New Jersey and subsequently learned the category was even more glamour-deficient than he’d assumed.
Homeowners usually ignore gutters, Krylov told Straight Arrow.
“But the negative ramification of failed gutters is expensive,” he said, citing basement flooding, yard erosion and falling shingles.
As part of regularly scheduled gutter clean-outs, his workers — and, when needed, drones — document the condition of a customer’s roof with photos and videos. Building a record of roof status is especially appealing to homeowners who intend to stay in their houses long-term and who want to stay a step ahead of problems that might erupt overhead. Krylov has found consumers are most interested in a monitoring subscription that catches emerging issues they can’t see or fix on their own.
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But consumers are wary of subscriptions that end up causing more problems than they solve.
As CEO of Butter Payments, which works with subscription services on customer retention, Charles Rosenblatt has become conversant with some of the problems consumers run into.
Because a home maintenance subscription needs to prove its worth over the full span of seasons, many require an annual contract, Rosenblatt said. That means it’s important that consumers understand the cancellation terms, lest they find they can’t drop the rest of the year if they aren’t happy with the first few months of service.
If part of a homeowner’s intent is to build a maintenance record that validates their stewardship of the house, they must retain the actual reports, photos and video, and not count on obtaining them when needed from the service. Finally, homeowners need to be sure the cost of the subscription doesn’t undermine their ability to save for the inevitable big bills, like replacing a roof or taking down a tree, Rosenblatt said.
Gelfusa thinks he has found the sweet spot: getting to know clients’ houses well enough that he can suggest appropriate maintenance checks on a rolling basis. What homeowners really want, he said, is not to be locked into a subscription but to feel that a pro is looking out for their houses in ways they can’t.
And the personal touch works both ways. “Clients have already met our employees,” he said. “It is a comfort to have someone coming into the house that they already know.”
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
