LAUNCHING an emergency breakdown service for houses instead of cars may seem to many to be a novel application of ‘roadside’ assist.
LAUNCHING an emergency breakdown service for houses instead of cars may seem to many to be a novel application of ‘roadside’ assist.
But according to Home Owners Utility Service (HOUS) managing director Todd Allender, it’s simply a sound business model.
“It’s very similar to a car breakdown service, where people who own a property buy a membership, for a dollar a day, or $365 a year, and if they have any electrical, plumbing or gas breakdowns we will send a tradesman out for free, and all they will pay for is any parts that are used,” Mr Allender told WA Business News.
HOUS, which has just celebrated its first birthday, is the product of more than eight years’ research by Mr Allender, who came up with the concept during his work as an electrician in 1998.
Mr Allender said he had been called out late one afternoon to fix a problem with an air-conditioner.
“Long story short, it was really badly wired, and it took me three hours to get the job done,” he said.
“She was a pensioner, so I said I wouldn’t ask for overtime from my boss, and just asked her to pay three hours’ normal rates.
“It was $45 an hour back then, so I said it was $135 dollars. As she was writing the cheque out she said, ‘that’s almost my entire pension’ and my gut just sank, and as I was driving home I wondered why there wasn’t an RAC-style thing for homes.”
Mr Allender said the company’s goal of 5,000 members would be easily attainable, considering that there are 540,000 homes in Perth, 130,000 of which are rental properties.
“Our primary target market would definitely be the investor, because it is a tax-deductible cost,” he said.
“We will be offering discounted solar panels and discounted solar installations to members, and we want to do deals with different companies to make the membership worth more to people, not just to cover the home.”
The next step for HOUS is to investigate expanding the service’s reach to the eastern states.
“We’re looking at a couple of different models to roll-out over there, so there is still a fair bit of planning involved in expanding to the east,” Mr Allender said.
“But we know that the market is there and we’ve already gotten phone calls from quite a few real estate companies over east asking ‘when are you going to be here?’
