With the present financial crisis that the world is experiencing, many businesses have closed down rather than continuously losing money. While others try to stay and just hope that the situation will become better soon. There are also some home-based businesses which start everyday and 50 percent of these do not survive during their first few years.

But with this situation, there are businesses whose activities are related to foreclosure and these are booming. While others are suffering, these businesses are making money out of the bad situation happening all around.

For instance, there are the realtors where they enjoy buying properties with selling prices way below the true market value. From the recent researches, the different businesses which are booming even with a recession are locksmiths, pool services and maintenance, grass painters, trash-outs, board-up professionals and property preservation companies.

Are the businesses mentioned above hard to do? Except may be for realtors, the rest are easy to manage and can be handled by any one else.

Let us take a closer look for each task:

Locksmiths – the locks of foreclosed properties are to be replaced. You can do this basic service or you may add other cleaning activities.

Pool services and maintenance – a foreclosed property with pool needs regular maintenance. There are some realtors and foreclosed companies that prefer to keep the pool drained or covered to avoid accidents and breeding of mosquitoes.

Grass painters – they are tasked to paint the lawns. Foreclosed properties with dying and brown lawns will not attract customers. Therefore the property owner has to maintain it so he needs the service of grass painters.

Trash outs – many of the foreclosed properties have junks and debris which are left by previous owner. To prepare it for the prospective clients, it needs cleaning services to make it ready for maintenance and repairs.

Board-up professionals – this service is important for a house that no one is staying in. They keep the exit and entrance points of the house closed to keep out stray animals and people. With this service, vandalism and squatters will also be avoided.

Property preservation companies – these are one-stop shops for the foreclosure companies. They offer all services pertaining to foreclosure cleaning. They basically conduct a regular maintenance for foreclosed properties.

After knowing the requirements of offering foreclosure cleaning, then you need to make connections with foreclosure companies and realtors. This is a very good strategy for you to have a regular cleaning service job.

When searching for realtors or foreclosure companies, it is important that you give competitive prices. For you to possibly do this, you must be aware with the competition in the market. Thus, you have to know these few things:

1. Who is the foreclosure cleaning provider of the foreclosure company
2. What services are offered by the said service provider
3. How much does the service provider charge for the cleaning services they offer

Tie Up with the Foreclosure Companies and Realtors

The realtors and foreclosure companies are always scouting for cleaning service providers and for the best deals which they can find. Always be reminded that these people are profit oriented and the service of a good cleaning job will further increase their potential income.

After your research, you can pass the following: company profile; services offered; list of your existing clients; and your proposal for the specific need of the foreclosure company. Do not limit yourself in giving a proposal to a single company. Remember, you need to advertise to make your service known in the market.

Your proposal must be well written to make it look professional. With your first attempt to a foreclosure company, your profile is very important to attract your client. You have to pass proposals to both big and small realtors to cover both market ends for a greater opportunity to have cleaning jobs. Bear in mind that the realtors and foreclosure companies need basic cleaning services to increase the value of the property that they are selling.

Be sure you have a complete cleaning list when you are already drafting your proposal including the description of the service that you will do.

Documentation in Cleaning

It very important to indicate in your proposal the details of the scope of cleaning that your business offers. With this, it will become transparent for the billing which reflects a professional attitude with your work.

Here is the sample checklist of different tasks which you may include:

I. House Cleaning

A. in all the areas
• polishing and dusting of the furniture
• cleaning, dusting, and polishing the windows and also the draperies of windows and the floors
• vacuuming all carpeted areas and area rugs
• cleaning all the mounted mirrors
• freshening and deodorizing the area

B. in the Kitchen
• polishing and cleaning all fixtures and appliances
• sanitizing and cleaning the sinks, cabinets, countertops, and cupboards
• polishing and cleaning the floors whether it is made of tiles, vinyl or wood

C. in the Bathrooms
• polishing and cleaning the walls and floors
• sanitizing, de-liming and cleaning the toilets, sinks, shower areas, and bathtubs
• polishing and cleaning the metal fixtures like pipes and faucets
• polishing and cleaning the mirrors

II. Lawn and Pool Area Cleaning

A. in the Lawn
• cutting and watering the lawn edge and maintaining the lawn regularly
• trimming the trees, hedges, flowerbeds, and weeds if needed
• grass painting

B. in the Pool
• draining of the pool
• cleaning and de-liming the tiles
• cleaning, maintaining regularly the filled-up pools, and covering

III. Repairing and Inspecting
• Checking the floors, interior walls, and the other fixtures for some damages or peeling paint
• Repainting
• Checking for cracks on the floors and exterior walls
• Checking the alignment of the gutters
• Checking and cleaning the fireplace and chimney
• Checking and repairing damaged or loose roof shingles
• Checking and changing the locks of doors and windows
• Boarding-up the access points

IV. Storage and De-Cluttering
• Throwing the trash and de-cluttering all the rooms in the house
• Storing excess furniture and other stuff (this commands additional fee)

With these, you can offer also other services like preparing a house for the coming winter, checking and treating termites and pests, or pressure washing,

See: How to start a cleaning business

Among any other season, spring is the messiest of all.

As the weather begins to be milder and the sun is here to greet your day, you will begin to see how messy offices and houses are, and chances are you will want to act the soonest to save it from the muddle. However, the feeling of as if you have the need to clean your living space is not just physical in nature since researchers in human development suggest that such behavior is due to fact that people are experiencing the mentality of trying to get rid of the gloom the winter season provides.

Spring cleaning is not merely beneficial to your house; works great for your soul, and is also a great boost to your cleaning service business!

Whether you’re doing it small-scale as a one-man or woman operation, or you already have a large cleaning business crew, here are a few tips to help your spring cleaning drive:

Start with the areas of the house that has been long left untouched, like the basement, the attic, or the garage. The easiest way to do this is to clean your stuff on a sunny day and move everything into your wide yard so you will have a lot of space to move around.

To make things a whole lot easier, ask the owners to put stuff that they would want to throw away or donate to Goodwill out in the garage or yard. Why is this necessary? When everything is outside, it is about time to sort things out into three piles; the charity, the dump, and the keeper pile.

It would be helpful if you can bring a garbage can inside the space that you are cleaning so it would be easy to toss trash away! Get yourself some large translucent bins so you can use them in storing the keeper pile. The rule of thumb is to ask the house owners about items which they are not using or haven’t used in the last six months or more. You can ask them too about their preferences – you can either donate the items which are still in good condition- not really new but still usable; or dump the items which have been damaged and are too far gone to be repaired.

When spring cleaning, it is important to ask the family’s cooperation as this will help your cleaning business become more popular with the household market. Cleaning for spring is fairly good business, since most people are motivated during this season to loosen up their house from the bulky and unwieldy trash inside the house.

Also, spring cleaning is normally a family activity, but since a lot of people are too busy working, they now let outsiders take care of the cleaning tasks for them. This doesn’t mean however, that the family should no longer have a say in what stays opr goes inside the house. Talk to the owners first and plan a good strategy for spring cleaning.

See: How to start a cleaning business