The promise is simple: hire a house manager, and suddenly someone else is doing your laundry, washing your dishes, prepping meals, completing Amazon returns, reorganizing utensil drawers, noticing your kid's outgrown shoes, taking your car to the shop, and meeting the plumber. They can make the class-party dish and, crucially, buy the crickets for the class pet lizard.
These are not nannies or cleaners. They are, according to over a dozen people interviewed, a "chief of staff for the home," a "personal assistant for Mom," or "a clone of myself." Effectively, they are what was once called a housekeeper - a role common for middle- and upper-class families in the past (the title dates to the 1830s) but now rare enough that some thought they'd coined the term.
While the ultra-wealthy have kept this role alive, companies are now cropping up to serve Americans with salaries in the lower six figures - a cohort nowhere near private jets but who might already use a house cleaner. For them, time is a premium worth buying back. Kelly Hubbell, founder of the 2023 company Sage Haus, says many clients are dual-income households where tasks outpace two adults; a house manager becomes the third. Several women described theirs as "my wife." One service is even called "Rent A Wife - Oregon," a name founder Brianna Ruelas Zuniga knows sounds a certain way but still likes.
Many businesses launched around the same time. In 2022, Amy Root ran a home-organization business in central Connecticut but realized that even with perfect systems, "the laundry still needed to get done." People needed help with regular to-dos and the "aspiration checklist," like finally hanging that year-old painting. In 2023, she pivoted to running Personal Assistant for Mom, leading a team of five (soon seven) part-time house managers.
The crew includes retirees, empty nesters, a doula-in-training, and an artist needing a gig. Rates are generally $25 to $50 an hour, with some agencies taking a cut (Sage Haus charges a finder's fee; managers are paid directly). It's very much part of the gig economy, with managers usually responsible for their own health insurance. Some work full-time for one family; many cobble together part-time gigs with multiple families while also working as nannies or cleaners.
When Root explains the job, most people ask, "Someone will do that for me?" Ashley Whillans, a Harvard Business School professor, notes such time-saving purchases don't occur to many. About a decade ago, she and colleagues asked people what they'd do with an extra $40; most said bills or a nice experience, and only 2% said a time-saving service. With platforms like Taskrabbit now common, more people with money see it as an escape. "I'm buying back joy and time where I can right now," said Barbara Mighdoll, a mother of two and business owner with a house manager for 15 hours a week. Each chore done closes "a tab that is now closed in my brain," eliminating mental ticker tape about laundry.
Whillans's research confirms such purchases can buy happiness. Outsourcing bothersome chores and reinvesting time in something cared about leads to higher life satisfaction - unsurprising to anyone who hates dishes. One study found couples spending freed-up time on each other reported improved relationships. Whillans has yet to see a point where off-loading to-dos stops increasing happiness. Tentative evidence suggests lower-income people report more benefits from time-saving purchases than wealthier counterparts, but at $30 an hour, buying back time remains a luxury.
If they can afford it, "people are now turning to the market for social support," Whillans said. The gig economy makes it easier: order soup on DoorDash when sick instead of asking a loved one, or take an Uber from the airport instead of a friend's ride. Almost everyone with a house manager lives far from family; several said they lacked a "village." Kara Smith Brown, a mother of two and PR consultancy founder, noted without "grandparents, or aunts and uncles to kick in at all," you "have to build your own and pay for it."
Paying is seen as an improvement. Eliza Jackson, mother of an eighteen-month-old and COO of ButcherBox, described waking early for chores, cooking breakfast, getting her son ready, commuting 1.5 hours, working all day, commuting home, cooking dinner, and doing household admin until bedtime. "I don't think the day that I'm describing is unusual," she said. "I just thought you suffered through it."
In January, she and her husband hired 23-year-old recent college grad Katie Eastlack through Sage Haus. Eastlack, living with parents in Virginia and struggling to find education jobs, realized she enjoyed helping her mom run a home. Hoping to move to Boston, she scoured Indeed for personal-assistant jobs and found Sage Haus's listing for Jackson's home. Finding the right family was crucial, as she's in their lives full-time, with a family credit card for expenses and trust to choose the right car repairman. She likes helping Jackson and her husband, with demanding careers, spend more time with their kid, and it allowed her to move to Boston and get her own apartment.
She's still getting used to coming home and realizing she has her own house chores. Kristen Milburn, a part-time house manager for a dual-physician home in Oklahoma City, said the role "requires a lot of physical energy," which she's unsure she can maintain forever. Loving her job doesn't change that doing someone else's housework all day "does make it a little harder to want to come home and do laundry and dishes," she said. "But it gets done." Running one household is a lot of work - let alone two.