As Valley residents transition to cooler places in the summer, Scottsdale-based Carlson Concierge Services experiences an uptick in business.
Carlson Concierge is a local, professional home watch company built on relationships, professionalism, trust and integrity that gives clients peace of mind during their prolonged absences. It has been accredited by the National Home Watch Association since 2014.
A wide range of home watch and concierge services and vacation rental assistance for diverse types of properties are offered through Carlson Concierge, including walkthroughs, storm watch, guest management, corporate estate management, keyholder and handyman service. It also has a state-of-the-art scheduling and reporting software for clear, frequent communication.
Leaving a property unattended for months can pose risks of water damage, pests, thermostat failure, etc., so Carlson Concierge works to safeguard properties from this. Water damage can have one of the worst impacts on a home, so anytime there’s a leak, Carlson Concierge quickly responds.
Carlson Concierge provides for the areas of Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Fountain Hills, Arcadia, Biltmore and Cave Creek.
Lee and Maureen Carlson established their owner-operator business in 2009. Word of mouth and fostering lasting connections with clients, realtors and other companies in the industry have been the key to their growth and success.
“Even from those first five clients, we grew,” Maureen said. “We’ve never had to do tons of advertising. The word’s really gotten out that we’re a trustworthy team, insured and bonded.”
There are now more than 45 companies in Arizona accredited by the National Home Watch Association, but Carlson Concierge was one of the first five.
They take home watch one step further than a property check and if an issue is uncovered, they find a resolution right away. The Town of Paradise Valley also offers Vacation Watches, and Carlson Concierge sometimes works in conjunction with the town if an alarm goes off.
According to the Carlsons, what residents find most beneficial about Carlson Concierge is peace of mind knowing that someone trustworthy is on the other end looking after their investment and that they live and work in the same area, so they know what’s going on. They try to stay within a 10-mile radius of their office.
“If there’s a huge monsoon that goes through, we’ll know if Paradise Valley has been hit hard like the storm three years ago,” Maureen said. “And this year when they had the issues with dinnertime burglaries, I alerted all of our clients to that and the police department open house.”
The idea for the Carlsons’ business started with mutual friends who are snowbirds. Maureen’s father got sick and decided to make Scottsdale a full-time home, so they were trying to figure out how to be in Arizona for Maureen to be close to her parents, according to Lee.
Their mutual friend suggested they come to Arizona to look after properties and do handyman services.
“We were down here for spring break with our kids at the time,” Lee said. “We went home, basically painted our house and put it on the market and moved down here and started from scratch. It was kind of a crazy thing to do in 2009 when the housing market came to a boil. It took us a while to get our feet under us. And now there’s more accredited companies out there doing it. The industry is really growing and they’re really putting a name to what we do and it’s been a huge help.”
The Carlsons work full-time with their business. What they like most about owning their own business is the flexible lifestyle it affords them to keep family a priority and the time to be together a lot.
“It’s kind of neat to see how you can grow something like that and have it be a successful business and I think it was good for our kids to be able to grow up watching that as well,” Lee said.
They want to get the word out about what home watch is so people know what to ask for. Home watch is generally defined as “the visual inspection of a home or property looking for obvious issues,” but this is not enough for Carlson Concierge, which states on its website it goes above and beyond to care for properties in the most comprehensive manner possible.
We invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org. MacKenzie Brower can be reached at mbrower@iniusa.org.
