Starter Kit. Idea 369 of 500. Cluster 18
Property management for the houses Sri Lankans abroad own at home, with a monthly report and photographs
The mechanism, from the book
1.5 million people abroad who know how rich countries work, and who send home money and little else.
The first step
Offer three owners abroad of empty houses in your area a single inspection at a fixed price: every room photographed, the roof, the garden and the water checked, and a written report sent abroad within a week. Ask each, at the end, whether they would pay monthly for the same. One signed monthly arrangement is your first client.
- Who pays first
- A Sri Lankan owner abroad whose house at home has stood empty since a parent died, and who hears about problems from neighbours months too late.
- What leaves today
- Houses owned by Sri Lankans abroad decay unwatched or are let informally; managed houses produce rent, repairs and local jobs instead of losses.
Ask first
- the local council (Municipal Council, Urban Council or Pradeshiya Sabha). Ask what the owner of an empty house must keep up to avoid problems.
- Department of the Registrar of Companies. Ask which business registration suits a property management service.
Check before you spend
Written authority from each owner, insurance while you hold keys, and how repairs are approved and paid before any work is done.
Find out these three numbers
- What would an owner pay for one full inspection?
- What monthly fee would they pay for ongoing care?
- How many empty houses owned from abroad are near you?
A comparison from the book
The fridge by the road. Chapter Six
"It is not character. It is accumulated proof."
Owners abroad trust a manager after months of honest reports, never after a single promise.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.