Startup CEO: Owning a home doesn't have to come with big maintenance costs

Home repairs and maintenance can cost thousands of dollars, but it doesn’t always have to be that way, one startup founder told Yahoo Finance recently.

Sheltr is a subscription service that helps homeowners proactively care for their homes to catch and mitigate issues before they become costly repairs. The subscription costs $399 a year, and covers a wide variety of services — including smart home installation, washing machine repairs, pest control and more.

“We come to your home every six months and do a home checkup, which is like a physical for your house,” CEO and co-founder, Andrew Wynn told YFi PM in a recent interview. He compared home maintenance to a routine doctor’s visit.

“With our service, after each home checkup, we give you recommended action items that you can do that help prevent some of those bigger term, bigger expenses down the road,” Wynn said.

“That said, if you have something that you need to get done that comes up outside of those six months or something you just want, like installing a smart home device, we can help with that as well,” he added.

If you’re a homeowner, chances are that you’re shelling out a lot of cash for upkeep.

Home Advisor reported that the 2018 average for consumer spending on home services was $9,081, consisting of $7,560 spent on home improvement, $1,105 spend on home maintenance and $416 spent on emergency spending.

“Our goal is to actually prevent some of those bigger costs from happening through routine proactive and preventative maintenance,” Wynn stated, adding that maintenance costs was “ the number one frustration among millennial homeowners.”

Wynn told Yahoo Finance that Sheltr also partners with insurance companies, as well as lenders and brokerages, to white label their service.

“There's obviously a really aligned interest,” Wynn said. “The home insurance company wants to prevent those little issues from becoming expensive repairs, and thus, claims for them.”

According to Sheltr, 59% of homeowners will experience a major home repair each year, but only 31% anticipate it.

“I was one of the 22 million American homeowners who have an unanticipated home repair each year,” Wynn said. “That's a pretty big number. There's a lot of us.”

Chelsea Lombardo is a production assistant for Yahoo Finance. You can find more of her work here.

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