I have a cleaner and I pay her $50/hr. Seems like a good business if you target the right zip code.
Warren_Puff-it on
Doesn’t just have to be palm beach/HCOL area. We looked for a maid last year for like 4-6 hours a week of work and all the quotes we got were upwards of $75 an hour. $75 an hour at 40 hours a week is upwards of $150k.
AgentBD on
hehe 180m2 here, housekeeper paid flat fee €70, never counted the hours as we don’t pay per hour.
Such a huge difference uhm. 🙂
armageddon_20xx on
We pay ours 50/hour for four hours a week. It could be lucrative work.
SouthOrlandoFather on
Those same Palm Beach residents are paying HOA monthly fees of $8,642. Great area to do service work.
americaIsFuk on
I’m in a HCOL area and have been looking for new opportunities away from a desk for the past year…I occasionally see some pretty lucrative opportunities posted for supporting high net-worth individuals that don’t require much experience/education. Personal assistants, property caretaker, I saw one role that was dedicated to care-taking their wardrobe and that was it.
And these often pay 80-100k. The best/most lucrative roles are likely not even advertised online or at least not anywhere I have access to.
Goku560 on
Any idea if this can be done remotely?
For example, I am in Canada and I know a cleaner in Palm Beach. I make that cleaner go and service the client and make money…I pay cleaner $40/hour but charge client $60/hour and profit the rest $20
NorCalJason75 on
Have you actually met people who can afford to pay housekeepers this? Fuck working for out-of-touch bitter housewives who married rich.
Big-Pea-6074 on
This could very well happen.
Housekeeping becomes lucrative because rich people need somebody to maintain the houses they are hoarding to drive up the value further
ModernMaroon on
I tell people all the time almost anything can be lucrative with the right factors and conditions.
My cousin quit being an accountant and opened her own cleaning business. Year one she was making about the same as she was doing accounting . Now it’s roughly year 5 and she’s in six figures.
The news and tech industry will think being successful means flashy and innovative when arguably most wealth can be made by simply being useful and consistent.
BlackPriestOfSatan on
I do agree with this.
I had a college friend and we talked about our families past and how we ended up where we are. She said her family made custom clothing during the Depression for rich people attending parties. She said they never lost money in Depression and have been rich for long time. Basic lesson: Serve the Rich.
Thistookmedays on
Last time I checked that could also be a salary for a proper butler, old English castle/mansion style.
Tex_Arizona on
Seems like there is a great deal of confusion in this sub about what “entrepreneurship” means. Unless you’ve figured out some kind of innovative new business model then a cleaning business, no matter how profitable, is just a run-of-the-mill small business. It’s not entrepreneurship.
ghostoutlaw on
Yea, the problem with housekeeping though is the employees.
Everyone sees an article like this and now expects 150k/yr for housekeeping.
No, that’s because were BILLING at $75/hr.
Accounts and lawyers bill $500/hr. Do they all make $1,000,000 year? No.
If I’m billing an employee out at $75/hr, at best I can maybe give them $25/hr. AT BEST.
Probably 1/3 of their time is spent driving. Less if I can optimize routes, but not always an option. That’s why we’re billing at $75/hr. Because they only generate billable time for 25 hours per week. So I’ve got to pay $1000 but I only get to bill for 1875. I have to pay taxes on that $1000 I pay them, so 1150 is what that employee costs me per week without benefits. Supplies, vehicle, gas. I think if we’re talking brand new little ford transits, after insurance and all the BS, cost of running that is expected to be $350/wk. I’m at $1500 and I haven’t even touched a cleaning supply yet. Call it $100/week in supplies and I have literally $275 leftover, which probably needs to go to a TON OF OTHER SHIT, on $1875 in billing. AT BEST I’m going to hit 15% profit margin here.
And that ignores client acquisition, turnover, AND THE FACT THAT I CANT EVEN OFFER BENEFITS!
That also assumes I send all my cleaners solo.
A lot more can be made if I can optimize my routes and stops better, and turn 30% travel time weekly down to say 15% or 20%. But you need a large quantity of customers to be able to have flexibility like that. Getting there is really hard. It gets easier as you scale, but scaling something that requires that many employees is hard.
AND
I haven’t even mentioned the fact that every week you’re going to lose an employee or 2 as well as a few clients to employees who want to go out on their own. This will be a WEEKLY occurrence once you clear say 100 clients.
Your client doesn’t care about the contract they signed. If you even got them to sign one. The Non-compete is illegal. And even if you did have a no-contact agreement, you don’t have the margin to enforce it. No, you’ll be too busy trying to replace lost employees 24/7 who will go out to bill at $50/hr cash.
It’s a really hard business to scale unless you have access to 1000 hyper reliable and loyal employees.
14 Comments
I have a cleaner and I pay her $50/hr. Seems like a good business if you target the right zip code.
Doesn’t just have to be palm beach/HCOL area. We looked for a maid last year for like 4-6 hours a week of work and all the quotes we got were upwards of $75 an hour. $75 an hour at 40 hours a week is upwards of $150k.
hehe 180m2 here, housekeeper paid flat fee €70, never counted the hours as we don’t pay per hour.
Such a huge difference uhm. 🙂
We pay ours 50/hour for four hours a week. It could be lucrative work.
Those same Palm Beach residents are paying HOA monthly fees of $8,642. Great area to do service work.
I’m in a HCOL area and have been looking for new opportunities away from a desk for the past year…I occasionally see some pretty lucrative opportunities posted for supporting high net-worth individuals that don’t require much experience/education. Personal assistants, property caretaker, I saw one role that was dedicated to care-taking their wardrobe and that was it.
And these often pay 80-100k. The best/most lucrative roles are likely not even advertised online or at least not anywhere I have access to.
Any idea if this can be done remotely?
For example, I am in Canada and I know a cleaner in Palm Beach. I make that cleaner go and service the client and make money…I pay cleaner $40/hour but charge client $60/hour and profit the rest $20
Have you actually met people who can afford to pay housekeepers this? Fuck working for out-of-touch bitter housewives who married rich.
This could very well happen.
Housekeeping becomes lucrative because rich people need somebody to maintain the houses they are hoarding to drive up the value further
I tell people all the time almost anything can be lucrative with the right factors and conditions.
My cousin quit being an accountant and opened her own cleaning business. Year one she was making about the same as she was doing accounting . Now it’s roughly year 5 and she’s in six figures.
The news and tech industry will think being successful means flashy and innovative when arguably most wealth can be made by simply being useful and consistent.
I do agree with this.
I had a college friend and we talked about our families past and how we ended up where we are. She said her family made custom clothing during the Depression for rich people attending parties. She said they never lost money in Depression and have been rich for long time. Basic lesson: Serve the Rich.
Last time I checked that could also be a salary for a proper butler, old English castle/mansion style.
Seems like there is a great deal of confusion in this sub about what “entrepreneurship” means. Unless you’ve figured out some kind of innovative new business model then a cleaning business, no matter how profitable, is just a run-of-the-mill small business. It’s not entrepreneurship.
Yea, the problem with housekeeping though is the employees.
Everyone sees an article like this and now expects 150k/yr for housekeeping.
No, that’s because were BILLING at $75/hr.
Accounts and lawyers bill $500/hr. Do they all make $1,000,000 year? No.
If I’m billing an employee out at $75/hr, at best I can maybe give them $25/hr. AT BEST.
Probably 1/3 of their time is spent driving. Less if I can optimize routes, but not always an option. That’s why we’re billing at $75/hr. Because they only generate billable time for 25 hours per week. So I’ve got to pay $1000 but I only get to bill for 1875. I have to pay taxes on that $1000 I pay them, so 1150 is what that employee costs me per week without benefits. Supplies, vehicle, gas. I think if we’re talking brand new little ford transits, after insurance and all the BS, cost of running that is expected to be $350/wk. I’m at $1500 and I haven’t even touched a cleaning supply yet. Call it $100/week in supplies and I have literally $275 leftover, which probably needs to go to a TON OF OTHER SHIT, on $1875 in billing. AT BEST I’m going to hit 15% profit margin here.
And that ignores client acquisition, turnover, AND THE FACT THAT I CANT EVEN OFFER BENEFITS!
That also assumes I send all my cleaners solo.
A lot more can be made if I can optimize my routes and stops better, and turn 30% travel time weekly down to say 15% or 20%. But you need a large quantity of customers to be able to have flexibility like that. Getting there is really hard. It gets easier as you scale, but scaling something that requires that many employees is hard.
AND
I haven’t even mentioned the fact that every week you’re going to lose an employee or 2 as well as a few clients to employees who want to go out on their own. This will be a WEEKLY occurrence once you clear say 100 clients.
Your client doesn’t care about the contract they signed. If you even got them to sign one. The Non-compete is illegal. And even if you did have a no-contact agreement, you don’t have the margin to enforce it. No, you’ll be too busy trying to replace lost employees 24/7 who will go out to bill at $50/hr cash.
It’s a really hard business to scale unless you have access to 1000 hyper reliable and loyal employees.