What home management costs in Indiana

Home management in central and northern Indiana runs about $175 to $350 a month at ABODE, with vendor work billed by the vendor at the vendor's price. Of the nine firms in this market whose sites could be read, none publishes a rate.

Our plan runs $175 to $350 a month. The price varies depending on the level of care you need. Vendor work is billed by the vendor at the vendor's own price, with no markup added by ABODE, so the monthly figure is the whole of what the firm is paid.

What moves a house within that range is the number of systems, the size of the property, how often it stands empty, and how much of the work the owner wants to keep. A four bedroom house in Fishers with one furnace, one water heater and a sump sits low. A property with a generator, a pool, a well, irrigation and a second building sits at the top of the range.

Very few firms in this market will say that much. Of the nine home management, home watch and estate management firms here we could check, none publishes a rate, and only one discloses the shape of its pricing at all.

Start with the total cost of ownership rather than the monthly figure. A common rule of thumb puts annual home maintenance near one percent of the value of the house. No agency publishes that figure, so treat it as a habit. What is solid is the base it is applied to: the Carmel median home value is $486,800 and the Zionsville median is $587,800.

Then ask four questions of any provider in Carmel or anywhere else. Is there a markup on trade work? Is the monthly fee a retainer or a per visit charge? Does the firm also sell the repairs it recommends? And what, exactly, is written down and handed to you at the end of a year?

The cheapest quote in this market is not always the cheapest arrangement. A firm charging less monthly while marking up every invoice can cost considerably more across a year in which a roof, a furnace and a drive all come due.