What Owning a Home Actually Costs, and How Holzl HomeCare™ Lowers It
A mortgage payment is only one line of what owning a home costs. The rest arrives in pieces: the tool bought for one Saturday, the seating for a party once a year, full price on everything, a contractor picked by guessing, and not knowing what the house is actually worth. Holzl HomeCare™ is five free perks built to lower every one of those, for as long as you own the home. It is how Holzl Homes looks after people before they buy or sell, through the move, and forever after.
Key takeaways
- The real cost of owning a home: the mortgage payment plus the tools, the seating, full retail on everything, the guessed-at contractor, and not knowing what the house is worth
- What Holzl HomeCare™ does about it: five perks that lower every one of those
- Cost to the client: nothing, for as long as you own the home
- Open to everyone: the HomeCare Hub at HomeCareHub.io, claimable with an address
- Clients only: Party Supplies, Tools, Landscaping and Home Improvement, the HomeCare Client Portal, Office Services
- Who it is for: buyers, sellers, and every Forever Client who has already closed
- Who runs it: Holzl Homes with Keller Williams Infinity, led by Carie Holzl with brokers Stacy Schoester, Christa Mabry and Michelle Meyer, 650+ families served and $225M+ in career volume
The Mortgage Payment Is the One Number Everybody Uses
It is the number the calculator gives you. It is the number in every conversation about whether a house works. It is a real number and it matters, and it is also not what owning a home costs.
The rest of the cost arrives in pieces, and no single piece looks like much. A ladder taller than the one already in the garage, bought for one afternoon of gutters. Chairs and a table for the one Saturday a year when everybody actually comes. Full price on the washer, because it quit on a Tuesday and there was nowhere else to look. A contractor chosen off a search result, because nobody handed you a name. And underneath all of it, the largest asset the household owns, carrying a value nobody in the house could state within fifty thousand dollars.
None of that is a reason not to own a home. Owning a home is the good part. It is the thing people work toward and the thing that quietly builds most of what they are worth. The point is narrower than that: the payment is not the price, and almost nothing in this industry is aimed at the difference.
Holzl HomeCare™ is aimed at exactly that difference. Five perks, free to every Holzl Homes client, for as long as they own the home. Closing is the only thing that unlocks them, and nothing renews after that. And the reason is not a secret worth keeping: Holzl Homes want to be the team you call for the next house too, and for the sister who is moving in spring. A relationship measured in decades is a better business than a commission collected once.
Before You Buy or Sell
Most people make the biggest financial decision of their life on a number they half believe. A website said something about the house two years ago, and that has been the working figure ever since.
The HomeCare Hub at HomeCareHub.io replaces the guess. It is free to anyone, client or not, and it is claimable with an address. It tracks home value and equity over time using three independent estimates rather than one, so the number has a range and a history instead of a single confident guess. On the sell side, that is the first honest read on what a move would actually put in your pocket. On the buy side, it is what tells you whether the equity you already have is enough to do what you want next.
Then there is the part software cannot do. Office Services includes a real estate market review of your home and a market rent analysis, both free to clients, because the question is often not just what it is worth but what it is worth doing with. And the conversation itself is free to everybody. Talking to the Holzl Homes team about where you stand does not commit you to listing, buying, or anything else.
The Move
Moving is the one stage where the hidden cost stops being hidden. Everything needs a box, a truck, a strap, a person, or all four, and most of the gear involved is gear you will not need again for years.
Clients borrow it instead. Aluminum and folding hand trucks, moving blankets and a packing tape dispenser for the day itself. A wet/dry vacuum for the rooms you leave behind and the ones you walk into. It comes out of the same shed as everything else, reserved through the HomeCare Client Portal, and it goes back when the truck is empty.
The members' discount marketplace inside the Portal covers the rest of it, the moving services and the furnishing that follows, across more than 100,000 national brands. There is over $5,300 a year in savings available to a member, on things a household was going to buy anyway.
Living In It, Which Is Almost All of It
The years between moves are where the real money goes, a little at a time, and they are the years most of this business treats as somebody else's problem.
Tools, Landscaping and Home Improvement is the answer to needing something once. A ladder for the gutters. A cordless drill driver kit, an electric sander and an airless paint sprayer for the projects that were never worth buying equipment for. A broadcast spreader for the lawn, a wheelbarrow, a heat gun, a caulking gun. Free to clients, reserved online, brought back when the work is done.
Party Supplies is the same logic applied to the good weekends. Twenty folding chairs, five six foot tables, two bounce houses, a 10 x 10 canopy, coolers and beverage dispensers, a coffee urn, a popcorn machine, a cotton candy machine, a snow cone machine, a hot dog roller and a propane patio heater. A graduation, a birthday, a Sunday that quietly turned into twenty people, and none of it has to live in the garage the rest of the year.
The Portal holds the rest of the everyday cost. The members' discount marketplace for the appliance and the warranty and the gym membership. Trusted partners, so the contractor is a name somebody already checked instead of a guess. The private client Facebook group and invitations to client events. Office Services covers scanning and copying at the Geneva office and referrals to trusted professionals nationwide. And the Hub keeps the maintenance reminders, the documents and the warranties in one place, so the furnace is a plan in October rather than an emergency in January.
The Next Move Is Paid For by Equity
Every one of those savings lands in the same place eventually. Money not spent on a tool, a rental, a full price appliance or a bad contractor is money that stays in the house, and the house is what funds the next one.
So the program works on equity from both ends. It shows you the number, through the Hub's value and equity tracking and a market review whenever you want a human read on it. And it helps you raise the number without overpaying to do it: remodeling ROI in the Hub tells you what a project would add to your actual home before you spend anything, refinance rate alerts watch the financing side, and the borrowed tools, vetted partners and member pricing lower what the work costs to finish.
Know the number. Grow the number. Then spend it on the next house, with the team that helped you build it.
The Five Perks of Holzl HomeCare™
All five are free. Four are for Holzl Homes clients, including Forever Clients who closed years ago, and one is open to anyone.
Free for our clients, for as long as you own the home
- Party Supplies
- Tools, Landscaping and Home Improvement
- HomeCare Client Portal, rent equipment online, browse trusted partners, the members' discount marketplace, the private client Facebook group, invitations to client events
- Office Services, scanning and copying, a real estate market review, a market rent analysis, referrals to trusted professionals nationwide
Free for anyone, client or not
- HomeCare Hub at HomeCareHub.io, home value and equity tracking, document and warranty storage, maintenance reminders, refinance rate alerts, remodeling ROI, Home Assist AI
About Holzl Homes
Holzl Homes is a real estate team with Keller Williams Infinity serving the Fox Valley area of Illinois and beyond. Led by Carie Holzl with brokers Stacy Schoester and Christa Mabry, the team has over $225M in career home volume, 650+ families served, and ranks in the top 1% of agents in Kane County.
Every agent in the county says they are the local expert. A shed you can borrow from, a portal with a login and a marketplace with your name on it are things a stranger can actually check. That is what the program is for.
5 N. Third St., Suite 201, Geneva, IL 60134. (630) 299-4459. holzlhomes.com
Frequently asked questions
What does Holzl HomeCare™ cost?
Nothing. Four of the five perks come with being a Holzl Homes client and stay with you for as long as you own the home. Closing is what unlocks them, and nothing renews after that. The fifth, the HomeCare Hub, is free to anyone at all.
Do I have to be buying or selling right now to use it?
No. Access is tied to being a client, not to an active transaction. Forever Clients who closed years ago have exactly the same access as somebody under contract this week. The program is built around the long stretch of owning a home, not the few weeks around a closing.
What can I use if I have never worked with Holzl Homes?
The HomeCare Hub, and it is the real thing rather than a trial. Claim it with your address and you get home value and equity tracking with three independent estimates, document and warranty storage, maintenance reminders, refinance rate alerts, remodeling ROI and Home Assist AI. The other four perks are what working with the team unlocks.
How does borrowing equipment work?
Sign in to the HomeCare Client Portal, pick what you need and the dates you need it, collect it, and bring it back when you are done. The Portal holds the live list, so what you see there is what is actually available.
How does the program help with equity?
In three ways. The Hub shows you what the home is worth and how much of it is yours, tracked over time rather than guessed at once. Remodeling ROI tells you what a project would add before you spend anything. And borrowed tools, trusted partners and member pricing lower what it costs to do the work that raises the number.
Why would a real estate team give away this much?
Because they want to be the team you call for the next house, and for the person you refer. Most of this business treats the closing table as the finish line. Holzl Homes treat it as roughly the middle, and the program is the part of that you can actually inspect.
Where does Holzl Homes work?
The Fox Valley area of Illinois and beyond, including Batavia, Geneva, St. Charles, Aurora, Naperville, Elgin and the surrounding Kane County communities. If you are moving outside the area, the team will refer you to trusted real estate professionals anywhere in the country.
Holzl Homes, 5 N. Third St., Suite 201, Geneva, IL 60134. (630) 299-4459. holzlhomes.com
Keller Williams Infinity, independently owned and operated.
