Please email us with any questions you may have after visiting the site or enjoying our media appearances.
I. Lifestyle Provisioning Explanation
Q. What do you mean by Lifestyle Provisioning?
A. Lifestyle Provisioning is when we act as a general manager for the process of establishing a new household. Our clients want an efficient, organized process to identify, secure and enable their homes. They have everything but time, so they turn to us for discreet practical support.
Q. What exactly do you do?
A. Our services range from creating a dossier of geographic locations and residential properties that suit our clients’ needs, all the way to creating social introductions, contracting household staff and stocking the pantry.
Q. What’s the difference between you and a realtor?
A. Realtors are sales professional with a geographically limited sales territory who get paid on a transaction. A realtor is one of a number of professionals that will be involved in getting a multi-million dollar household up and running. We are different because we manage the entire scope of launching a new household, including all the specialty professionals, so that our clients simply show up to enjoy their lives in a fully renovated, staffed and operational property.
Q. What do you need besides a real estate agent and a moving company to set up a High Net Worth household?
A. There are generally three tranches of experts that are involved- - finance, decor and maintenance. Wealth managers, private bankers, trustees, lawyers, and bookkeepers each have information needs related to the new household. Architects, Designers, Decorators, Art experts, Landscapers, Inspectors, Building Departments and other Speciality trades all have overlapping and interdependent schedules to manage. Finally there are the maintenance folks, such as the Estate Manager, Security, Chef, Housekeepers, Drivers, Gardeners and routine exterior and interior upkeep professionals, like exterminators, plumbers and the like.
II. Foreclosures/Bad Economy
Q. How is the current housing crisis affecting the rich?
A. Certainly current market conditions are being felt. The challenge for some of our clients is how to downsize from an $8-10m home to a $4-5m home in a discrete and controlled manner. Our clients are generally a very practical group- - they take the long view and seek discreet, practical support in challenging times. This has also turned into a buyers market for our clients with strong cash positions...we are doing lots of scouting in South Florida and the Cape/Islands area this summer.
Q. So it is as bad at the top as it is at the bottom?
A. You still need $4 million to be middle class in New York and San Francisco... that’s the purchase transaction. Median and Average home sales values are up in the good zip codes . Median sales price in Manhattan rose 22% for properties more than 2 million so far in 2008. However, there is softness in 2d home markets. Homes above $5m are selling for 85-90% of list in Nantucket and Miami this summer. So to put that in perspective, sellers of high end homes are giving up profit margin, not a total lifestyle.
III. Human Interest
Q. What’s the strangest thing you’ve had to do for a client?
A. Discretion is the hallmark of our service, which leads to some interesting experiences. My most charming client is a serial purchaser of homes for friends and relatives to enjoy...as gifts. For the most part, my clients are all really normal, really busy people who just have great cash flow and want to use that money to minimize distractions and inconveniences. They also don't want to be taken advantage of... see generally the Koslowski $6k shower curtain.
Q. What’s the average cost for your services?
A. We have a range of fee agreements, from annual retainers for our serial acquirers to hourly rates for limited scope projects. We are not paid in any way by the service providers with whom we engage on behalf of our clients. Our retainers start at $25k and our typical limited project fee is $10k.
Q. Who are your clients? Anyone on this months gossip columns?
A. We do handle a few executives and celebrities who are popular with the press. Most of my clients are more fortunate than famous. They have cash flow, a sense of urgency, a deep desire for privacy and a preference for results without process.
Q. How did you decide to start this business?
A. I was frustrated by the inefficiency I experienced securing my own homes. I realized that I was the only nexus where my banker, lawyers, real estate agents, general contractors, designer, mover and employment agencies met. All we wanted was an enjoyable bolt-hole but in order to get it I had to engage with this overwhelming cast of characters in my daily life. I joked one night to my husband that what we really needed was a lifestyle COO to manage all these P&Ls, and the company was born.