There are lots of snow birds in Southwest Florida, and you want someone you can trust to watch over your home when your not here. Today we talk with owner Vinny Saputo about his home watch company. Listen in to see what you should be looking for in a home watch company.
To get ahold of Vinny you can call 239-249-3353
Email Vinny@NaplesPremierHomeWatch.com
Go to his website http://www.NaplesPremierHomeWatch.com
Also you can get information at info@InternationalHomeWatchAlliance
where you can get the Ultimate Home Watch Guide
To learn more:
https://barefootbungalowrealty.com/
Barefoot Bungalow Homes
9200 Bonita Beach Rd SE, Suite 100
Bonita Springs, FL 34135
(239) 350-5535
There are lots of snow birds in Southwest Florida, and you want someone you can trust to watch over your home when your not here. Today we talk with owner Vinny Saputo about his home watch company. Listen in to see what you should be looking for in a home watch company.
To get ahold of Vinny you can call 239-249-3353
Email Vinny@NaplesPremierHomeWatch.com
Go to his website http://www.NaplesPremierHomeWatch.com
Also you can get information at info@InternationalHomeWatchAlliance
where you can get the Ultimate Home Watch Guide
To learn more:
https://barefootbungalowrealty.com/
Barefoot Bungalow Homes
9200 Bonita Beach Rd SE, Suite 100
Bonita Springs, FL 34135
(239) 350-5535
Welcome to the Live Your Best Life Barefoot podcast with your host, Mary Mouritsen and the team at Barefoot Bungalow Realty.
Speaker 2:Good morning, everyone. We're here with our next episode of Live Your Best Life Barefoot. We are so excited to talk a little bit about the market, we have a little bit of cooling, not a lot don't wanna, don't wanna get anyone's hopes up too much, but we're seeing, I think spring break and a little bit of distraction with summer coming up and kids getting out of school. So it is a great time to think about looking at the market again, if you've been holding off because we are seeing a little bit of even little bit more even kill. And so that's our little market update, Ruth, how are you today?
Speaker 3:I'm great. Mary, you sound so much better, so
Speaker 2:Much better Back to normal,
Speaker 3:Back to normal. I'm excited for today's guest. We have Vinny Saputo he's with Naples Premier Home Watch. Hi, Vinny, how are you?
Speaker 4:Hi ladies. How are you? Thanks for having me
Speaker 2:So good to have you.
Speaker 3:It's really good. So Vinny, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 4:So I've been in business for three years now, originally from New Jersey, came down to Naples vacationing here for almost 20 years. Wow, got married here in 2009. So Naples has really been a big part of my life for a long time. It took my wife some convincing, but it's pretty hard. It's not a really hard sell to finally get here. And we got here, three years ago. And we started t he business shortly after. When I was kind of my background, I was a police officer, f ireman EMT. So kind of 20 years of emergency s ince, as long as I can drive a lmost. So it's been a long time and I knew that I was getting tired of the cold and all d ifferent reasons why we fell in love with here, you know, so we came down and decided that i t, this w as where we wanted to live and raise our kids. So I, you know, I'm married, I have two kids, 9 and 6 soon to be 10 and 7, can't believe that. Wow, but it's been a great place to raise a family as well. So we came down here and one day I was sitting on the beach and I was thinking, what am I gonna do? Because I didn't really want to get back into police work. I knew that was something that I didn't really want to get into. And what the guy next to me told me, like, you should look into home watch and I'm like, well, I knew what it was. It's kind of like a household name here down in Southwest Florida. No one knows in New Jersey what house, what home watch is unless you actually have a seasonal property. So, I started looking into it and I figured that, you know, it's something I could, I could certainly do. And given my background, as I was getting out of police work, I used to take care of exotic car collections actually. So it was really a good transfer you know, transfer down here and kind of like with building, background and like, building trades growing up in my early twenties and then getting into police work gave me a little bit of credibility, kind of coming into the field and know being trustworthy. And you know, that that's super important. I mean, we're in multimillion dollar houses on a daily basis and we wanna make sure that, you know, we have somebody in there that's professional, you know, they have good moral compass and they're, they're doing all the right things, you know, so integrity is super, part of our business. And, and that goes for all the employees that we, we have as well. So did that. And, shortly I started with 10 homes my first year. It quickly grew in the COVID at two years. Basically because people were buying property site on scene, as you guys know, they needed, they wanted relocated into Southwest Florida and they needed somebody to watch their property. From the time they they're selling their properties up north and they wanted to have deliveries sent, they wanted to send their cars down, they wanted to get the HVAC company out there, like start working on the house and then all the general contracting type of stuff. So we did a lot of project management during that time too. So some of them, they, we were just getting ready, their seasonal homes, same type of thing. So we were kind of really busy. We really grew from, you know, 10 that first year to quickly to 50. Wow. We, a nd right after when I first hired my first employee, w e w ere r ight around 50 homes and we quickly grew up to w e're at 8 5 currently. Wow. So, i t's become, it's a mazing how far we gr ew i n such a short amount of time, but I really think that comes back to customer service a h undred percent.
Speaker 3:Well that's now we were talking to you at our, our meeting that we went to and you do, it's like a concierge service almost like right.
Speaker 4:It is exactly. So we kind of started as a home watch company serving the seasonal absentee homeowners, homeowners had multiple properties, rental property owners, and then people that kind of needed help on a day to day basis. And it kind of evolved from the home watch into full on estate management. And the best way I describe that to people is we kind of bridged a gap between property management and home watch. So we kind of do everything in between. So, project supervision, contractor supervision, letting contractors in the houses themself overseeing these type of projects, talking directly to the homeowner. And then of course our, our roots are home watch. So we're watching these properties when nobody's there for, and it kind of, you know, during COVID it became longer durations of time that it's not just the six months snow season that we were kind of seeing, we were kind of seeing Canadians couldn't get back here for over a year. So and then same thing with international clients, you know, Europe and South America, they just couldn't get back to their property. So it was that six months turned into a year plus in a lot of cases. Yeah. And they really needed somebody, not just to watch it for this, that time, but now we're looking at HVAC service visits, and then, you know, God forbid you have a problem on top of that too. Now you're just, it really just evolved so rapidly into that type of work. And that's where, kind of where we're at now. It's just full on estate management, but going back to the concierge services, I tell my clients, if it's not illegal or immoral or unethical, I will help you with any type of service you have, love it. And we've kinda done everything. I mean, we've taken bicycles to get serviced. We've taken delivery of cars, which is a normal, e very d ay, w e're s etting up cleaners t o come see their houses, pool guys, landscapers, you name it, we do it. And that's k ind o f how we e volve into what we are currently.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. So what is your favorite client story?
Speaker 4:So there's so many stories, but some of these requests, I mean, because we do so much, so many type of things, s ome, you know, it became like pets s itting into, you know, I basically you become a local source of knowledge basically because once they, you develop that relationship with them, as you guys know, it's like, we don't call them customers, we call t hem clients because i s, it's really more of a relationship that we have with them. And as you develop that, they really w ant t o know, Hey, what's your favorite place to eat? Hey, where where's a good place to go here. And, you know, I have a service v isit and t hen all the contractors that come along with that, but I w ould tell you that some of the horror s tories you have in this field, is w hich case I think that's why we became so successful is that we just do the opposite of ev ery, all those horror stories. So it's kind of like, you know, things get undetected. So a water leak can rapidly turn into a massive problem of not only to mention that, but also a mold outbreak, right? We're not allowed to say the M word per se, but we say microbial growth. So that kind of happens in a short amount of time due to how much humidity we have here. So one time this client's previous, before he hired our services, he said that he had a little leak that went undetected, and then it came down and basically his roof collapsed in his garage on top of his Maserati and his Bel air inside the garage, that happened to be a convertible with the top down. So the massive amount of stuff that just kinda went undetected for how long, you know, and that's what I mean, it's such a, you really need a reputable to really start watching these type of properties that when they say they're gonna do something, they say, they're gonna watch it. They're actually actually doing the job because you get, unfortunately, people understand that this became evolved from a neighbors doing favors, kind of like they would come over, watch the properties. And then we like to say that they turned into hobbyist Home Watchers. So basically that neighbor figured out, I could make a little bit of cash at doing this and a little money on the side. And then they would watch all the seasonal homeowners properties on the block or a condominium, they would watch the whole building. So then they real put the problem is that they never were fully insured and they never, they were working without contracts. So a lot of these things really, you know, snowballed into really bad situations because when he wanted to play or they wanna play golf, they wanna go fishing that day. These properties aren't being actually watched properly. So that's kind of like where we kind of took it to a professional level. We wanted to make sure that this is a legitimate business. We're fully insured, bonded, have the proper insurances to drive the vehicles we drive too. That's another huge aspect of our concierge services is really car drives, taking them for service and that kind of thing. So that probably one of the coolest things we do, I like t his b ecause I'm a huge car guy myself and having that background in exotic vehicles. So it's k ind o f tough to tell people t hat, you know, what a re you d o on a daily basis? Well, half of it's sometimes flushing toilets, but half the time it's, i t's driving Ferrari's. So it's really b alance of a lot o f things in between.
Speaker 2:I love it. That is awesome. That's not a bad life right there. No, we'll take it. Try all the new cars. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4:For sure.
Speaker 2:So tell us what you think we're heading up into the season switch here. Do you have any for our homeowners that might be getting away for summer or just going away for a few weeks?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I always, so a couple tips, I would say when the property's not occupied, I tell you always shut the water off. It really just mitigates so many problems that can really happen between a leaky ice maker line because they can really put out a lot of water undetected for a long period of time and being that most of the materials for floors, typically tile, tile, maybe some kind of wood or something like that. So it really can travel a really far distance, a leak that goes undetected. So I'd say make sure you turn the water off when you're not there. Another huge tip, so we deal with two big thing, in Southwest Florida, it's really w ater intrusion being from a storm could be a leaky pipe, could be a lot of different factors. So w ater intrusion's one HVAC pump like HVAC That's not working properly that the flow sensor is not actually working properly as well, can clog and then that becomes a water source. It really, most of the stuff is in the attics. So it really can kind of dump a lot of water if it's not all these things aren't working properly. And then the other thing is mitigating humidity. So humidity is really a number one thing we deal with. So it's a perfect storm. You have a little bit of water source and a high humidity level in your house. And that's where microbial growth can start 24 to 72 hours after it starts, depending on how hot it gets, humidity rather. I mean, so to really mitigate that is you have to set your thermostats between, I like to tell my clients between 76-78 degrees, and that gives you that sweet spot really like 50 to 55% humidity levels. And that's where you want to keep it at. I mean, lower is always better, but if you can manage between 50 and 55, perfect. I think that's gonna alleviate so many other problems. So having the humidity properly managed in your home, along with shutting the water off, when you're not occupying the property, two major things that you can do to prevent so much kind of things that go wrong.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Because I think a lot of people think, well, I'm not gonna be there. I'll turn off the air. Yeah,
Speaker 4:Exactly. It's the worst thing you could do. In fact, down here in Southwest Florida they run 24 hours a day, you know, all year round. So, and this type of year, like when it gets cold in the winter months, I say cold, it's like relatively cold, right? So we hit 70 degrees. I'm freezing here, but right when it goes into the cooler times of the year where the air's not running as much. So when we see those humidity levels really rise up because the HVAC does two different things. It cools your home of course, right. AC. But it also, it mitigates the humidity. It takes the humidity out of, out of the air. So if it's not running because it's cool outside, it's letting that humidity really rise up. So you're gonna have to really bring your thermostat down. It makes, you know, it's cool outside, but you're bringing it down to 71, maybe 72 sometimes to get that humidity out of the house. And another huge thing that we deal with that people just don't understand. And a lot of it has to do with people from the north because they think that the fans should be on because you're typically in a winter months up north, you want that air to come into your house because it's dry. Right? You want to have it on auto at all times because you don't wanna bring the humidity into your home. You want to make sure you kind of, you want to get it out. So you want to keep it in auto at all times on thermostat.
Speaker 2:That is a great tip. Yep. Yeah. I didn't even think about that because I just turn it on fan all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Good to know. Sure. That's really good. All right. Well, before we let you go, we always like to ask our guests for a personal tip of what you love to do in Southwest Florida.
Speaker 4:So I moved here specifically because of the subtropical climate and I like to do anything on or around the water. So if it's boating, wave running, laying on the beach, that's my favorite things to do. And you know, having family here too. And my, my kids love the beach too. They're two girls that grew up on the beach from the time they were born. They were sitting on car seats on the beach as well. So it's really one of our favorite activities is anything on the water, paddle board and kayaking, all that kind of things too.
Speaker 2:Love it. And how can our guests, if they don't have a neighbor, that's gonna be as great as you are to watch their house. How can they get hold of you to use your services?
Speaker 4:So you could, if you Google Naples Premier Home Watch or Naples Home Watch we typically come up in one of the top three. But you can contact us directly at 2 3 9 2 4 9 3 3 5 3. You c an check our website, Naplespremierhomewatch.com. And you c an also email us a t info@Naplespremierhomewatch as well. Something I like to tell you too, is that I'm also part of the International Home Watch Alliance, which is a not f or p rofit organization dedicated to really educating the public on what home w atch is because it's two things it's unregulated as just there's no license to be a home watch professional. Okay. And the second thing i t is that we want people t o really understand that the full they need full coverage. These companies that they hire, t hey need general liability, a bare minimum. So part of our organization is that we, anybody in our organization has to do, t hey c an complete a background check. They have to actually have general liability insurance as well. Typically it's about a million dollars to 2 million dollar aggregate. And also they also have to continue to do compliance training. So they also have to make sure all their stuff is up to date at all times as well. So that's the International Homewatch Alliance, which I'm currently the president of. So it's not only is it business that it's also a passion. So I like to say that we want to make sure even if they didn't hire our company specifically, I want them to understand that these are the things you should need to look at. And when you're selecting the right company for your property needs, that we also give a it's called about it's a, The Ultimate Homewatch Guide. Basically it tells them everything they need to know about home watch and the type of services they need to get. And they also things to look at when you're interviewing these types of companies.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. And they can get that from your website
Speaker 4:From, they can get that from the International Home Watch Alliance. Okay. And on that website, you'll see, you'll see a lot of, of the different services that we do. That's great education part of our, our job as well. And the companies that are in there, there's a member's directory. So you can kind of see all the people part of that organization.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's awesome. That is really good tip. Beause a lot, I don't think a lot of people think about are they insured? You know, exactly.
Speaker 4:I mean, you want somebody reputable, right? And typically it's somebody, you know, and our basically our company really comes from a lot of referrals. So, you know, if the neighbor uses them most likely they're gonna use them too, because they like the neighbor they're gonna like to service, but these are the types of things you want to make sure that, you know, not everybody, gels right. With the right company. Right. And they might do certain services and they might operate in a lot of different ways. So it's kind of gives you a lot of tips, things to look for it a nd make sure they're actually accredited. T hey're licensed to do business i n entire county, which is a business tax receipt. They call it. So they're not actually licensed. So you see, y ou hear that term a lot of times licensed and insured, there really is no l icense to do home watch. It's really just a licensed to do business in the county that they o perate i n.
Speaker 2:Okay. That is such good information. Sure. Well, it's been great having you on thank you for coming. And we appreciate all of your knowledge. Yeah. Really good information
Speaker 4:For sure. Happy to that.
Speaker 2:And thank you to all of our listeners. And if you have something you are curious about anything here in Southwest Florida, we'd love to hear from you. Can check us out on our website, Barefootbungalowrealty.com, or you can go to our Facebook page. You can message us there. We'd love to hear from you and as always remember to Live Your Best Life Barefoot.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Live Your Best Life Barefoot podcast sponsored by Barefoot Bungalow Realty, to learn more about Barefoot Bungalow Realty, go to www.barefootbungalowrealty.com or call 2 3 9 3 5 0 5 5 3 5.