As baby boomers pass down trillions in property, a new class of professional home oversight services is emerging to bridge the gap between inheritance and competence.
By Hayli Mace:
The Wall Street Journal dropped a staggering number last week: $4.6 trillion in global real estate will transfer from baby boomers to Gen X and Millennials over the next decade, with $2.4 trillion of that property sitting in the United States. According to data from Coldwell Banker Global Luxury, Altrata, and Cerulli Associates, roughly 1.2 million individuals with net worths exceeding $5 million will pass down more than $38 trillion globally during this period.
The Inheritance Gap Nobody Discusses
Real estate attorneys and family offices interviewed by the Journal report profound changes in how high-net-worth families approach property transfers. Children are being brought into inheritance conversations earlier. High-stakes decisions are accelerating. Yet one critical question remains largely unaddressed: who will actually manage these properties once they change hands?
Consider the typical scenario. A couple in their forties inherits their parents’ vacation home in the mountains, a property that has been meticulously maintained for decades by owners who understood every quirk of the plumbing, knew exactly when to drain the water heater before winter, and had cultivated relationships with a network of local tradespeople built over twenty years. The inheriting couple lives four hours away, works demanding jobs, and suddenly finds themselves responsible for a property they visit perhaps six times per year.
The math gets worse for estate properties in probate. A vacant home loses approximately $60 to $100 per day in effective value through deferred maintenance, security risks, and market deterioration. A six-month probate process on a $500,000 property can easily cost $10,000 to $18,000 in preventable losses before the estate even closes. Factor in pipe bursts from freeze damage, pest infestations, or vandalism in vacant homes, and the numbers escalate quickly.
Professional Home Oversight Enters the Chat
The estate management industry has existed for decades, but it has traditionally served the ultra-wealthy, the families with dedicated staff and seven-figure budgets. What the coming wealth transfer demands is something different: professional-grade home oversight accessible to the merely affluent, the busy professional, the long-distance inheritor who needs competent eyes on a property without the overhead of a full-time estate manager.
We recognized this gap years ago. After nearly two decades managing rental properties across seven metropolitan markets, we understood that the operational systems we had built for investment properties could solve an entirely different problem. The same meticulous documentation, vendor coordination, and accountability systems that protect landlords could protect anyone who owns property they cannot personally oversee.
This realization led to the development of our Custom Home Services division, a systematic approach to residential oversight that brings institutional-grade property management to primary residences, vacation homes, and inherited estates.
What Modern Home Oversight Actually Looks Like
The fundamental problem with traditional approaches to property care is fragmentation. A homeowner might have a landscaper, an HVAC company, a handyman, a pest control service, and a neighbor who checks on things occasionally. Each relationship requires separate management. Each vendor has their own scheduling quirks. Information lives in text messages, voicemails, and the homeowner’s memory. Nothing is systematically documented.
Professional home oversight consolidates these relationships under a single point of accountability. When we onboard a property, we create comprehensive documentation: thermostat models, alarm keypad details, breaker box locations, water shut-off points, room layouts. We photograph every exterior elevation, verify plumbing function, and establish baseline documentation that proves invaluable if insurance claims ever arise.
Owners access a portal showing every visit, with timestamps and linked photographs. No ambiguity about what was done and when. No relying on memory or verbal assurances. The documentation standards we maintain literally stand up in court, a capability that matters significantly for estate properties where multiple heirs may have competing interests.
Beyond the Handyman Model
Any competent handyman can change an HVAC filter or check that pipes are dripping during a freeze warning. The value of professional oversight lies in what a handyman cannot provide: systematic accountability, institutional-grade documentation, and the elimination of relationship management overhead.
We coordinate vendor access so owners never need to manage schedules. We handle mail sorting with photographed documentation of important items. We provide 3D property scans that prove invaluable for estate documentation and insurance purposes. We meet lenders, inspectors, and insurance adjusters so owners can continue with their lives rather than burning vacation days on property logistics.
For estate situations specifically, we provide court-ready oversight documentation with communication trails that satisfy even contentious probate proceedings. The phrase we hear most often from estate attorneys is simple relief: finally, someone who understands that documentation is not optional when multiple parties have financial interests in a property.
Positioning for the Transfer
The Journal article notes that high-net-worth families are already accelerating their real estate planning conversations. Smart families are not waiting for death to figure out property management logistics. They are establishing oversight relationships now, while parents can still communicate preferences and institutional knowledge to service providers.
We have seen this firsthand. Increasing numbers of our custom home services clients are adult children who convinced their aging parents to professionalize property oversight before an emergency forced the issue. These families understand that the alternative, figuring out property management in the fog of grief and legal complexity, costs far more in stress, money, and family harmony than establishing systems proactively.
The Trust Equation
Property oversight is fundamentally a trust relationship. Someone will have keys to your home, knowledge of your alarm codes, and access to your personal space. The informality that works when a neighbor checks on your vacation home becomes problematic when significant assets and estate complexity enter the picture.
We have maintained five-star ratings across seven major metropolitan markets for nearly two decades. That consistency reflects something deeper than competent service. It reflects systematic processes that remove individual variability from property care. When our technicians arrive at a property, they follow documented protocols. They wave at doorbell cameras, identify themselves by name and company, and execute standardized procedures that ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
Our clients do not need to develop personal relationships with individual service providers, relationships that inevitably become complicated over time. They interact with a company that has deep institutional experience, documented processes, and accountability systems that transcend any single employee. That distinction matters enormously when the property in question represents significant family wealth.
The Coming Decade
The $4.6 trillion in real estate changing hands over the next decade will create unprecedented demand for professional property oversight. Some families will navigate this transition smoothly. Others will learn expensive lessons about the hidden costs of absentee ownership: the frozen pipes, the undetected roof leaks, the deferred maintenance that compounds into major repairs.
We are building our Custom Home Services division specifically to meet this moment. The operational infrastructure we have developed over two decades of property management provides the foundation. Our technology stack delivers the transparency and documentation that modern property owners expect. Our team brings the boots-on-ground capability that no app or platform can replace.
A New Offer From a Trusted Name
For families facing the complexity of inherited property, vacation home management, or simply the desire to stop worrying about a home they cannot personally oversee, professional oversight services represent a category that barely existed a generation ago. The coming wealth transfer will make these services not just convenient but essential.
The question is not whether you will need help managing property. The question is whether you will establish that relationship proactively or reactively. The math, and the stress, strongly favor the former.
