Custodians of second homes.
A small, founder-led firm built around a single idea: a second home deserves the same standard of care as a first.
The Peninsula has many companies that will rent your home. None that simply look after it.
If you own a second home on the Mornington Peninsula and do not let it, you have probably built your own management team by accident: a cleaner with a key, a gardener who keeps an eye out, a handyman you found through a neighbour, a pool technician you call when the chlorine drops. Five contractors. Five invoices. No single person responsible for the whole.
For a property worth several million dollars and built to be enjoyed, this is no system at all. It is a series of fingers crossed.
We built The Estate Co. because the alternative — managing the people who manage your home — is not the role you bought a second home to play.
The standards.
Insurance, before anything else.
Before we hold the keys to your home, we hold the cover required to do so responsibly. Public Liability of twenty million dollars. Professional Indemnity of five million. Property in Care, Custody and Control for damage to the homes we look after. The protection sits behind the service, where it belongs.
People we would put in our own home.
Every custodian we send is engaged on a contract, not as a casual. Every trade partner has signed a master agreement that sets the standard of work, the conduct on site, the documentation we require, and a strict policy against undisclosed rebates. Each is insured. Each is police-checked. Each carries our brief.
One management margin, openly disclosed.
When we coordinate trade work — a plumber, a painter, an arborist — we add a twenty percent management margin to cover scheduling, supervision, and accountability. That margin is disclosed in writing before the work begins. There are no undisclosed mark-ups, no rebates received from contractors, and no hidden fees in the monthly statement.
Discretion.
We do not name our clients. We do not photograph their homes for our marketing. We do not list properties for short-stay or any other purpose. The trust of the people we serve is the only inventory this business holds.
Hebert Rodriguez.
The Estate Co. was founded by Hebert Rodriguez, who has spent the past decade running service businesses in the Australian construction trades. His first company, Gapless, is a Melbourne-based specialist in commercial and residential caulking — work that depends on precision, reliability, and a deep network of trade partners. The same operating standard sits behind The Estate Co.
Hebert founded The Estate Co. after watching, again and again, the same pattern unfold among friends and clients with Peninsula homes: capable people, time-poor, hiring well-meaning contractors one at a time, then carrying the management of the whole arrangement themselves. The work required was operator work. The role missing was custodian.
The business is built around a small team of custodians, a vetted network of trade partners, and a thoroughly modern operational backbone — designed to keep the human work human, and to take everything that need not be off the owner's plate.
Founder-led at the door. Modern infrastructure behind it.
Every new client is met by the founder at the property. We walk through the home, learn how it is used, and understand what the owner cares about. The proposal that follows is written by hand and tailored to the property.
From there, the operational systems take over. Every visit is logged, every photograph filed, every report delivered on a predictable cadence. The same property is attended by the same custodian wherever possible. The same trade partners are used across visits. Continuity is part of the product.
Behind the scenes, we use modern tools — a property management database, AI-supported reporting and dispatch, a client portal — to keep the administration light and the service consistent. Everything the owner sees is human. Everything the owner does not see is in order.
Enquire about founding membership.
A small number of properties are being accepted for the 2026 season.
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