Full Service For Empty Houses

BROOKSVILLE - Brian Griffith lost his job as a middle management real estate executive last September because of the stagnant housing market.

Less than two months later, Griffith was his own boss and is now capitalizing on the same market that cost him his job.

Griffith, 55, is founder and president of Vacant Home Care, LLC, based in Land O'Lakes. Among the services the company offers are "home care visits": prescheduled stops at vacant homes to check on and maintain them.

The company's motto: "You just can't let them sit there."

"Houses are meant to be used and occupied," Griffith said. "When you shut everything down, bad things happen."

The company is currently operating in Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas and Hernando counties.

The demand for the service, Griffith said, is huge, virtually untapped and - unfortunately for many homeowners - still expanding.

Griffith, who also is a certified building contractor, had been a senior project executive at The Cascades at Southern Hills in Brooksville, a project by the builder Levitt & Sons.

He foresaw the inevitable burst of the real estate bubble - and that his job would likely be a casualty. He started doing research to help develop a plan for his new company a couple of months before he was actually laid off on Sept. 21.

Levitt & Sons filed for bankruptcy in early November.

Griffith's company was up and running by the end of the month.

Now he is taking care of model homes in The Cascades for the bank.

"It's transferable skills," Griffith said. "Instead of building more, let's maintain what we have and protect the value of these assets."

Many analysts now predict that the housing market will get worse before it gets better. And the recent meltdown of the sub-prime mortgage industry and skyrocketing foreclosure rates have only increased Griffith's potential market, he said.

Griffith has yet to work on a foreclosure property, though. His business in the last two months is concentrated mainly in the affluent New Tampa and South Tampa areas, where he maintains homes currently on the market.

Though he knows there's a need for the company, he has had some trouble finding out just who is supposed to hire him.

He's been in contact with several banks, "And the answer I get is the listing agent is in charge," he said. "The agent says, 'The bank won't let me spend money.'"

The home care visits are available on a weekly, biweekly or monthly basis on one-, three- or six-month intervals. Griffith uses a 29-point checklist for the exterior and interior of a home.

He e-mails reports to clients, including photos, with recommendations on what might need attention, whether it's a leaky roof or torn lanai screen.

Griffith, his wife Renee and son Shaun are the only employees of the company. The rest of the work is done by subcontractors, and Griffith said he is glad to be providing work to those who, like him, felt the pain when the bubble burst.

So what happens when the market rebounds and, hard as it may seem now to imagine, starts booming again?

Griffith predicts he will be working for fewer banks and more investors who snapped up properties at bargain-basement prices.