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Hire an Estate Manager

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10+ years

placing estate managers

10%

of US requests are estate managers

90-day

replacement guarantee on every placement

Morgan & Mallet recruits estate managers for HNW and UHNW households across the US.

This is the most senior hire in a private household – good candidates are rare and most aren’t actively looking for a new role.

We have a database of only the most experienced, proven, candidates. Our connections across the industry mean we can quickly match you with the right estate manager for your needs.

Every candidate is interviewed for 90 minutes and goes through a strong vetting process before being presented to you.

What does an estate manager do?

A private estate manager looks after everything across multiple properties for a principal or family office.

Staff, maintenance, vendors, budgets, making sure each home runs properly whether you’re there or not.

A house manager runs one home. An estate manager runs all of them.

Morgan Richez, co-founder of Morgan & Mallet: “The estate manager manages construction, renovations, property sales, rentals, finance, reporting to the family office, and travel between properties for the principal. The house manager is focused on one property. The estate manager is global.”

Day to day, they deal with vendor contracts, keeping on top of maintenance, insurance renewals, property taxes, and getting each home ready for the next season.

They’re the ones talking to the landscapers, pool services, HVAC contractors, electricians, plumbers, and security companies.

They know what’s in every cupboard and they’re the one signing off the roof repair, the generator install, or the smart home upgrade.

Every home needs to be ready before family arrive.

In Florida, Daniele Vasconcelos, recruiter at Morgan & Mallet, sees estate managers who also need to prepare properties for hurricane season: shuttering windows, testing generators, coordinating with insurance.

In Boston and the northeast, it’s snow removal, making sure pipes don’t freeze, and looking after the property all through winter. Location really does shapes the job for each estate manager.

If you spend nine months in Manhattan and three months in the Hamptons, your estate manager is the one sorting out which staff go with you and which stay behind, opening the summer house, and making sure nothing falls through the cracks when you move.

Jonathan de Vanderbilt, recruiter at Morgan & Mallet: “Most losses happen during transitions. Handoffs expose weak structure.”

For more detail on the exact requirements for the role, read our estate manager job description page.

How is an estate manager different from a house manager?

A house manager runs one property and the staff inside it. An estate manager is in charge of all the house managers and runs the whole operation across every property you own.

Laurine Mallet, co-founder of Morgan & Mallet: “Imagine you have a property in France, another in the US, another in the UK, another in the UAE. You have one house manager per property. The estate manager manages all the house managers.”

The money is the biggest difference. Budgets, taxes, income from rental properties, reporting to the family office. A house manager doesn’t touch that. They report to the estate manager, who reports to the family office director or directly to the principal.

Some households use the title “chief of staff” instead. The roles can at senior level. From what we see, house managers tend to come from household staffing backgrounds. Chiefs of staff often come from hospitality.

How much does an estate manager cost in the US?

Estate manager salaries in the United States range from $150,000 to $250,000 a year, according to Morgan & Mallet’s 2025/26 Household Staff Salaries Annual Report. It’s one of the biggest hires a family will make, up there with private chef and chief of staff.

What they actually earn depends on the number of properties, the size of the staff team, and whether they’re also overseeing construction or renovations. NDAs add 15 to 20% on top. Estate managers looking after $30 million or more in property usually earn at the top end.

You’ll also need to cover payroll taxes (FICA), workers’ comp, and health insurance. If you’re employing household staff directly, you’ll need an EIN and proper W-2 classification.

Putting a full-time estate manager on a 1099 is a mistake that costs people a lot of money. Live-in roles pay a lower base but include accommodation and meals worth $20,000 to $40,000 a year.

How hard is it to hire an estate manager?

About 10% of US requests at Morgan & Mallet are for estate managers, based on placement data from the 2025/26 Annual Report. But estate managers are harder to hire than almost any other position.

It’s the top job in a private household. There’s no one above them except the family office director or the principal.

Laurine Mallet: “You can find a lot of house managers or estate managers. But finding people with discretion and the right mindset, that’s not easy. Some people, when they get a very senior position, they feel very important. They think certain tasks are beneath them. A house manager needs to clean the bathroom if the housekeeper is sick. If they say ‘that’s not my job,’ they’re wrong.”

An estate manager needs to have managed staff, vendors, budgets, and construction across multiple properties at the same time. That combination is rare.

Plenty of candidates have some of the skills, but few have the whole package.

Daniele Vasconcelos, who recruits in Florida and neighboring states: “Skills, experience, and personality. You need to match all three with what the family needs, and with the family’s personality and culture. This is the challenge everywhere in our industry, because we’re placing people inside people’s lives.”

When do you need an estate manager?

You need an estate manager when you own two or more properties and the job of looking after them all has got too big for one house manager or PA to handle.

Most families who hire through us have at least three homes and staff at each one. The people who contact us are the family office director, a personal assistant, or sometimes the principal directly.

Morgan Richez: “When we work with a family office, it’s usually for many roles, not just one. They manage different properties. When they contact us, they say ‘we need two or three people’ or ‘we manage five or six properties, so we need staff.’ Every case is different.”

A typical setup in the US we see could be something like a principal with a penthouse or townhouse in Manhattan, a waterfront home in Palm Beach or Coral Gables, and maybe a country estate in the Hamptons or Connecticut.

If there’s a ski place in Aspen or a summer house on Nantucket, the estate manager covers those too.

Each property has a house manager. The estate manager runs all of it and reports to the family office.

Morgan Richez: “At the beginning, they don’t give you everything at once. They want to work with you on one case. Step by step, they give you more. They don’t want to hand over everything in one shot.”

This is normal. Family offices test agencies on a single hire before giving you everything else. One good hire leads to the next, and eventually we’re staffing across all their properties.

What should you look for when hiring an estate manager?

Multi-property experience. Non-negotiable. They need to have managed at least two properties at the same time, with staff at each one.

Looking after one large home is house management. Looking after three or four homes at once is estate management, and it’s a different job.

Financial skills. Budgeting, paying vendors, keeping track of taxes, reporting expenses, and sometimes doing the bookkeeping through QuickBooks or similar.

Your estate manager reports to the family office. If they can’t produce a clear monthly report, they’re not right for the role.

Staff leadership. They’ll be managing house managers, housekeepers, chefs, gardeners, maybe a chauffeur. That means hiring, scheduling, performance reviews, and sometimes difficult conversations.

Laurine Mallet says this is the biggest problem she sees in candidates: “They manage, but they also need to respect the jobs of their colleagues and their staff. Not think ‘I’m a manager, so I don’t clean.’ That attitude fails.”

Location-specific skills. In Florida, your estate manager needs to know what to do if there’s going to be a hurricane. Shutters, generators, flood insurance, tree trimming schedules.

In Boston they need to know about snow storm maintenance and making sure pipes don’t freeze.

In California, knowing your wildfire evacuation routes and keeping the brush cleared.

Rural properties in Connecticut or the Berkshires may have septic systems, well water, and private roads that all need looking after.

Daniele Vasconcelos: “It’s not a specific role. It’s specific skills due to the weather and location.”

Discretion. At this level, your estate manager knows everything. Property values, renovation budgets, family schedules, staff salaries. One candidate Laurine interviewed started name-dropping former employers within 30 minutes. That ended the conversation.

Can an estate manager handle seasonal and multi-property homes?

Yes, and this is one of the main reasons families hire them. Families who split time between New York and the Hamptons, or the northeast and Florida, often rotate staff with the seasons. Your estate manager is the one making that work.

Daniele Vasconcelos sees it across her Florida and Boston markets: “I see a lot of staff rotating between properties. They follow the principals. For very high-end properties, each one has its own staff. But when it’s not that big, the staff rotate.”

In Florida, hiring season starts in August and September. Families need properties ready before they arrive in the fall. In Boston, spring is the busy time. Families return from Florida or from abroad, and they want the house ready. Daniele Vasconcelos: “There’s nobody here in the summer. In the summer, they go north or to Europe.”

The estate manager also keeps properties running when you’re not there.

Morgan Richez describes a common setup: “Sometimes a very high-profile client hires staff for the second or third home. But when they visit, they bring their own team. The existing staff maintain the property year-round. It’s quite common for housekeepers in these houses to never know who the final principal is.”

How do you hire an estate manager through an agency?

We start with the family office or principal. How many properties? How many staff at each one? Who does this person report to? Is this a new position or a replacement?

This first call matters more for estate managers than for almost any other role, because the family office often doesn’t have the full picture.

Morgan Richez: “The family office doesn’t live with the principal. They manage the wealth and finance, but they don’t always know how the principal lives. Sometimes they contact us without knowing the full expectations. That’s a problem we need to solve before we start searching.”

At this level, headhunting works better than job ads. The best estate managers are already running someone else’s properties. They’ll only move for something better.

We approach candidates directly through our network and through LinkedIn. For most estate manager searches, that’s where the best people come from.

Every candidate does the usual 90-minute interview, plus we test them with real scenarios.

How would you handle a renovation delay that affects a principal’s arrival at the second property? A vendor cancellation the night before a major event? A housekeeper going off sick when the family’s flying in tomorrow morning?

For very wealthy families, hiring involves multiple rounds. Morgan Richez: “First you talk to the PA, then maybe the family office director, then the estate manager if there is one already, and lastly the principal. The more important the client, the more steps.”

We guarantee every estate manager placement for 90 days and stay in close contact during that period.

Frequently Asked
Questions About Hiring an Estate Manager

How long does it take to hire an estate manager?

Four to eight weeks. This is a senior role with a limited candidate pool. If you need someone who can also manage a build or has experience with properties in other countries, it takes longer.

Can an estate manager also handle property development?

Some can. If you’re renovating or building, you need a residential estate manager who has actually managed construction before, not just the household side. We can search for this, but it narrows the pool.

What background do the best estate managers come from?

It varies. Luxury hotel management is the most common background, and those candidates are used to running big properties with large teams. We also see strong candidates from corporate facilities management, real estate development, and the military.

A hospitality management degree or a project management certification helps, but what clients care about most is hands-on experience running private properties and managing household staff.

Is an estate manager the same as a property manager?

No. A property manager deals with tenants and rental income. An estate manager in a private household runs the entire operation: staff, maintenance, vendors, budgets, security, and logistics across multiple homes. It’s a bigger job.

Do you place estate managers outside major cities?

Yes. The Hamptons, Greenwich, Aspen, Palm Beach, the Berkshires, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, Jackson Hole, Scottsdale, anywhere our clients have properties. Rural estate searches take longer and may need a live-in arrangement.

What about employment law for estate managers?

If your estate manager works across multiple states, things get more complicated. New York’s Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, California’s strict labor protections, and Florida’s at-will employment rules all have different requirements for overtime, days off, and contract terms.

If your estate manager is classified as a household employee, you’re responsible for W-2 reporting, FICA withholding, and state unemployment taxes in every state where they work.

We connect you with employment lawyers in each state and can help set up contracts that work across states.