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Local Living
A community podcast for Palm Beach to Parkland.
Local Living
The Elite World of Estate Management with Christopher Milu
Christopher Milu, founder of MCM Estate Management Services and Consulting, reveals the behind-the-scenes world of managing luxury properties for seasonal residents and high-net-worth individuals across South Florida. From overseeing massive oceanfront estates to maintaining homes whose owners haven't visited in years, Milu shares how his unique background prepared him for this specialized service industry.
• Services include property oversight, vendor coordination, remodels, staffing, and maintenance
• Properties range from oceanfront mansions to golf community homes from Miami to Hutchinson Island
• Started as a handyman and was promoted to estate manager for a US Ambassador
• Differentiates between property management (exterior tasks) and estate management (deeply involved with owners' lives)
• Certified by the National Home Watch Association, ensuring professional home assessment
• Background includes Marine Corps, retail management, political fundraising, and rehabilitation work
Contact Christopher at chrismilu.com or find MCM Estate Services and Consulting on LinkedIn.
Local Living is a community podcast for Palm Beach to Parkland. Are You A Local Business, Resident, Leader or Non-Profit? If so, we would love to have you on the podcast!
Go to www.locallivingpodcast.com for all of the info.
Welcome, welcome everyone to Local Living. We are a community podcast for Palm Beach to Parkland. My name is David Conway. I am the publisher of the Living Magazines, but I will also serve as your host for today's episode. And with us today we have Christopher Malou. He is the founder owner of MCM Estate Management Services and Consulting. Christopher, welcome to Local Living.
Speaker 2:Good morning, thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's great to have you. You know I often I know what you do exists. I know people do it, but I don't know much about it and I'm excited about learning. Tell us a little bit more about your business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd love to Thank you. Mcm Services we provide a lot of property management and oversight for homeowners, whether it's a super large house or just a seasonal bungalow. Whether it's a super large house or just a seasonal bungalow, we also cater to C-suite executives, minimizing their concern or stress with homeownership. We oversee operations, vendor coordinations, remodels, staffing if there's a need for staffing, definitely the maintenance. We always want to make sure the properties are running flawlessly and they're always ready at all times. We also provide home watch services because many of our clients are seasonal residents and we want to make sure that their properties are secure, hurricane ready in their absence, maintained and just making sure that nobody's squatting or not doing the caretaking for the grass or the pools while they're away.
Speaker 1:So where, primarily, are most of your estates currently? Are you on the island Palm Beach? Are you up and down the corridor there? Where are you working mostly currently?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we do have clients from Miami Beach, north Bay Road all the way up to Hutchinson Island. Some of them are oceanfront homes, very large properties. Some of them are golf course communities, so they're a little bit further out west, and we do have some along the intercoastal waterways as well.
Speaker 1:So how did you get into this, Christopher? Tell us a little bit more about your journey.
Speaker 2:It was actually an accident. So I was a handyman for a while and I had an ad listing and or my company was listed in Angie's List, which is now referred to as Angie, and I had a lady call me out to visit her house and when I Googled it I couldn't believe the size of it. I've never seen homes that big in my life and she asked me to do some work for her over the summer and I did the work for her, got it done. Then she started referring me to her neighbors because we did a very good and efficient job and she actually hired me as her personal property manager and I did that for two years.
Speaker 2:After the estate manager resigned, I got promoted to estate manager and I actually ran the entire estate for eight years. He was the United States ambassador, so we had a lot of fun and a lot of crazy events and political fundraisers. Then they downsized from a very large home to a smaller home. I really didn't have much to do, so I started going out on my own and that's how we created MCM Estate Services.
Speaker 1:So I'm sure a lot of different clients have different needs. But for a layman like myself so you were a property manager and then you were promoted to estate manager Property manager is that someone who just is in charge not just, but in charge of the grounds and things that may go wrong in the home, and then the estate manager is managing you, other staff and also coordinating events and things for the homeowner. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's exactly right. So my first two years was primarily just picking up dog waste, overseeing the landscapers, making sure the cars were washed, the koi pond was cared for, anything kind of exterior and then light bulb changes inside nothing on the major end of things. I would let vendors in the house and check them out when they left, kind of watch over them when they're in the property, if the owners weren't there and the estate manager. When I got promoted to that, that, that was a lot more intricate. I was very active with the family.
Speaker 2:I oversaw schedules for the, the clients, we booked flights for them, we did itineraries for holiday trips. So it was a lot more detailed and also intricately entwined to their daily lives. Whereas as a property manager, just check in, do my list of stuff and leave. Sometimes as a property manager, just check in, do my list of stuff and leave. Sometimes as a state manager, you don't leave, depending on what time the dinner party ends or who's coming in town and so forth. So there was a lot more intricate services provided at that level.
Speaker 1:So for someone that's never used in the state management service, do they come in with any myths or misconceptions about what you do or about your industry?
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of people think it's just about maintenance, but it's not. We try to recognize that these homes are a great asset to our clients. Some of them are second and third homes. I have one client who I've never seen in seven years. He hasn't been to his house in seven years but we go there every week and check it out for him and send them a report.
Speaker 2:But a lot of people think, well, I have this property, it can sit for four or five months, or I'll just have my neighbor pop in, or maybe my, my sister-in-law, will go by once a month but, as we know, in, if you have a small drip or a leak under a sink after a month it's going to be a mold party and you're going to have a lot of issues to deal with. So you know we are trained, all of our associates are trained to go through the house and to sniff out. We check for odors, smells, any strange noises, because we are in tune to those things and we know what to look for and listen for and we kind of create a presence of peace that you're not worried about this property whatsoever you can experience when you come back and you haven't been to the house in four or five months and there's rats or raccoons living in there and we've seen it all trust me rats or raccoons living in there.
Speaker 1:We've seen it all, trust me. So I've got to go back just a little bit. Seven years he was never at the property, Not to name names but tell me a little bit. So when someone, I'm guessing it was a large home.
Speaker 2:Actually no, it's not one of our largest clients and when we say estate, we do have some proper estates 10 acres, 12 acres, 7 acres, 5 acres proper estate.
Speaker 2:Okay, correct, but also it. We, we do regular property management. Um, and this client's. You know it's a four bedroom house about probably 4 000 square feet and his neighbor, uh, referred us. He hired the phone. He lives in Virginia and he just he inherited the house from his granddad and he just never comes down. But he wants to keep it because it's homesteaded, there's low property taxes, it's in a very well sought after neighborhood and he has just steadily watched the value rise over the past seven years. So AC is running, water is running, hot water heater's working good, everything is checked, even the portion of the garage is is ran. Once a week we drive around the block, make sure it's gassed and maintenance and everything. But he just has no desire to come down.
Speaker 1:So how interesting. Something tells me, christopher, you're probably on call 24-7 and working nonstop. I know you're building a successful business. Yeah, when you're not working, do you find time for fun to yourself. How does that shake out? What do you do when you're not working?
Speaker 2:Well, having a lot of oceanfront homes is great because I'm a surfer, so there's also some exclusive breaks to surf in some of these locations. But I'm a beach boy. I was raised in Hollywood, florida. I grew up here in Florida. I traveled up and down the coast pretty much all my young life and adult life, so I love the beaches. I also love Florida history. I'm very avid and big into Florida history. I'm on the board of directors for the Loxahatchee Battlefield Preservationist, and that's a group out in Jupiter that protects a section of land that has over 5,000 years of history there. I'm also into metal detecting and I like to explore off-grid places and ghost towns, so that's what I do in my free time, if there is any available, by the way.
Speaker 1:I live in Parkland, but my home away from home is actually New Smyrna Beach.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a great area.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've got to like the break there at New Smyrna Beach.
Speaker 2:It is a lot of great history in New Smyrna as well, that's true.
Speaker 1:We actually have ruins there which people don't know much about. So you know, you've got such an interesting career and I sense that a lot of what you do is, and I sense that a lot of what you do it's very personal. You're in people's homes. You've got to be able to relate to them personally as well as manage their estate. Have you been through anything in your own?
Speaker 2:life which you felt or feel specifically prepared you for what you're doing now. Well, I think everything I've done kind of culminated into this position. From when I graduated high school I went straight to the Marine Corps. When I got out of the Marine Corps I really did nothing for four or five years except for hang out at the beach. And then I became a manager at Lowe's, which taught me about profit and loss statements, inventorying, leadership, management, oversight of staff. I worked on Capitol Hill for five years in political fundraising. So that brought me to a different echelon of interaction with VIP people, different, as you would say.
Speaker 2:Maybe upper crust clientele Moved back to Florida and I worked at a drug and alcohol rehab and I really got a chance to learn different types of people, different type of perspectives. And then launching my handyman company which, as I mentioned earlier, led me to the estate manager's job. It culminated in all of this service style industry and, not knowing that the estate or property management existed, I kind of created this little niche for ourselves and we kind of ran with it. So I think kind of my entire upbringing culminated to this dispensation of time and here we are now. So a lot has played into what we do and how we serve.
Speaker 1:That's a great answer, Chris. You really do seem uniquely qualified for what you do. So for a listener out there that may be considering reaching out and using your services, can you tell them something that you'd like them to know about you or about MCM estate management services that makes you uniquely qualified to take on their job?
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the things. We are certified by the National Home Watch Association, which is an organization that certifies and vets organizations or businesses like mine to actually go out and properly assess a home. We also have been, you know, in the construction industry for a while, so we have that insight on how places are put together. I mean, if anybody wants to look us up, they just can Google my name. Our website is chrismalucom, so it's very simple. Or you can Google me and see some of the issues and stuff we've been interacting with and platforms that we're on.
Speaker 1:And it's chrismalucom, so that's C-H-R-I-S-M-I-L-U dot com, is that?
Speaker 2:right. Yes, sir, I'm also on LinkedIn, so if any LinkedIn professionals are out there, you can connect with me on LinkedIn or even just Google. Our company name MCM Estate Services and Consulting.
Speaker 1:Well, Christopher, it's been a pleasure having you on here today. I've learned a lot about an industry I didn't know much about.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate you coming on a lot about an industry I didn't know much about.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate you coming on. Yeah, thanks for having me Once again, everyone. This is Christopher Malou with MCM Estate Management Services and Consulting, so be sure to reach out to him and his company if you or someone you know would like to learn more about his services. Once again also, I'm David Conway, your host for Local Living. I thank you for joining us today and we look forward to having you back real soon.