The apartment concierge goes mainstream as luxury developments take service to a new level
5 min
As downsizing has given way to rightsizing, a new breed of homeowner is exercising their right to outsource. From dog walking to gift buying, personal drivers to private chefs, today’s concierge services have become so much more than the glorified parcel-minding amenities of yore. Time poor homeowners are increasingly seeing the value of bringing the hotel lifestyle home by happily handing over daily tasks — and the real estate industry is taking note.
The global concierge services market was valued at US$647.30 million in 2022, and is predicted to hit $1.1 billion by 2032 according to Allied Market Research data. While there are no comparable Australian-only statistics, anecdotal evidence suggests our local market is set to explode as stretched-thin professionals seek out additional at-home help.
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Concierge on call
Comprehensive concierge services are now a hot commodity in lavish new residential developments, especially those targeting “rightsizers” relocating from big family homes to lock-up-and-leave apartments. Once just a smiling face in the lobby of upmarket inner-city unit blocks, the role of a concierge in 2024 goes beyond simply signing for packages and surveilling security cameras.
The Landmark in Sydney’s Lower North Shore is a $1.4 billion development offering residents access to its Club 500. The exclusive club includes traditional aides such as house keeping, restaurant bookings and car washing, with additional high end helpers like chauffeurs, event managers, interior decorators and personal shoppers.
On the riverfront in Melbourne’s Docklands precinct, Seafarers (a joint venture between Riverlee and 1 Hotels) is part five-star hotel, part residential development giving permanent residents the opportunity to cash in on the hospitality. Homeowners at the $550 million project set to open in late 2024 can tap into all the guest services of the luxury accommodation.
“Residents will benefit from a blend of the best hotel amenities with curated residential offerings, including organic pantry stocking, botanical and pet care, eco-conscious housekeeping, private chefs, in-room massages and access to the hotel’s event programming,” says Riverlee’s development director, David Lee. “The breadth of services on offer combines convenience, luxury, and responsibility into an unparalleled residential experience.”
Lee says Australian’s desire for concierge services is increasing as the needs of local luxury property buyers continue to evolve.
“As a developer, we saw a need to cater to this demand and provide residents with access to the services that allow them more time to enjoy life and experience luxury within the comfort of their homes,” he adds. “As we navigate the new norm post-pandemic, integrated services have become an enabler of a more balanced lifestyle, and we recognise that people are looking for a complete lifestyle upgrade, which begins in the home.”
A life of service
Evan Cannan, operations manager with building management company Lefand, has been a professional concierge for more than two decades, first in five star hotels and now in a residential setting. Lefand will provide building services at new residential development Akoya, a 55s project in Greenwich, Sydney.
“The types of services and facilities are becoming more high end, especially over the past five to 10 years, compared with the concierges we remember from the 1980s and 1990s,” Cannan says. “These additional services mean apartments are achieving a higher price point, but with that comes higher strata fees.
“However, most buyers are happy to pay for it because they’ve reached that stage of their lives when they appreciate it.
“These people have seen the benefits of having a concierge within their office space, or they’ve travelled the world and experienced luxury concierges in places like Dubai and Singapore.”
Although there was once a great divide between a hotel concierge and an apartment concierge, Cannan says the lines have now blurred.
“A great concierge needs to have a wealth of information at their fingertips. Without even looking having to look it up they should be able to know the best restaurants in the area, what events are on and where, and just be able to advise residents with personal requests.”
He says the job calls for plenty of patience and discretion.
“I’ve had no limit of extraordinary requests over the years including one lady who used to send me off with her ATM card to get large sums of money out for her, but sometimes it’s as ordinary as looking something up on Google Maps when you know they could have found the information themselves,” he says.
Moving forward, Cannan predicts concierge services will likely be shaped by client demand as apartment buildings become vertical villages.
“Just looking at what’s available within services around the world, I think there’s still a lot more to come to Australia,” he says. “A good concierge service is regularly having those discussions with residents about what they want and don’t want.”
Helping hand at home
Brand new apartment developments aren’t the only bricks and mortar getting the concierge treatment. Melbourne-based real estate agency Kay & Burton launched its in-house concierge service two years ago with a handful of offerings. What started as a service organising removalists and connecting homeowners with tradespeople has morphed into more than 100 preferred partners and associates.
Cath Stubbings, director of Kay & Burton’s concierge team, says due to overwhelming demand for a suite of lifestyle requirements, the team has grown exponentially.
“It started with us wanting to service our clients with their property-related needs. As a result of finding trades for them we naturally started getting asked for more lifestyle-related things,” she says, adding that the evolution has stemmed from a desire for a better work/life balance.
“Many of our clients have fairly senior roles, or run their own businesses, and they’re reevaluating what’s the best use of their time. Those working quite long hours see the value of outsourcing tasks they may have normally done themselves.”
Since COVID lockdowns, Stubbings says her clients are spending more time travelling so are seeking a professional shoulder to lean on.
“We look after their home while they’re away, which involves anything from visiting the property regularly to checking mail, watering gardens, turning lights on and off, putting blinds up and down, meeting trades, arranging cleaners or even putting food in the fridge.
“The idea is when they return they’ve got a welcoming house to come back to and it gives them peace of mind.”
As the sector grows, Stubbings says the requests are also becoming more bespoke.
“Now we even have people asking us to stock their cellars,” she says. “There’s a trade on our platform specialising in building cellars so they liaise with the client to get an idea of what types of wine they like, what balance they want, and then go about sourcing those wines and building the cellar up from scratch.”
Stubbings says with the work from home phenomenon, the need for help at home will likely continue to grow.
“Over the next three to five years we’re going to see more people calling on a wide range of concierge services as individuals travel more or spend time building businesses,” she says.
“It’ll become more common to seek out people like us who can support you getting things done around the home.”
Article originally published on Kanebridge News Australia
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Meta is betting on a human-first AI future, but growing legal battles and declining public trust are putting Mark Zuckerberg’s vision to the test.
3 min
“Call us optimists. Call us dreamers. Call us whatever the hell you want, but we’re betting on people, and we like those odds. The future is for everyone.”
That ad copy is from the voice-over of a July Meta Platforms META -3.38%.
spot that’s been part of a public-relations blitz to position Meta as the humanist AI company. The message was undercut by the ad’s inclusion of David Bowie’s “Five Years,” a brooding 1972 song about an impending apocalypse. But this week CEO Mark Zuckerberg left no ambiguity, publishing a 6,500-word manifesto—about 10 times the length of this newsletter—with a title that echoed the ad: “The Future is for Everyone.”
That seems to be Meta’s new tagline. In light of sinking public opinion and the company’s thousands of lawsuits from states, school districts, parents, and users, Meta’s public relations have been defensive. This push represents a return to offense, with a chance to distinguish Meta’s approach to AI from other labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, or SpaceX SPCX +9.65%.
“It is surprising that the discourse from many developing AI is so filled with doom,” Zuckerberg wrote. “I do not understand why anyone who believes that AI will eliminate most jobs and much of humanity’s relevance would rush to build that future.”
Zuckerberg frames what sort of future we build with AI as the central issue of our time. “We believe that delivering superintelligence to everyone is the way to answer this question,” he says. “This has the potential to begin a new era of personal empowerment where individuals can use this powerful new capability to reach their full potential, pursue their interests, and improve their lives and the world more than ever before.”
The flood of words belies the situation on the ground in mid-2026. Americans, at least, have a love-hate affair with social media. A November Pew Research Center poll reported that 71% of U.S. adults used Facebook, and 51% used Instagram. Worldwide, 3.6 billion people use at least one Meta app every day.
But in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in July and August, 61% of respondents said they wanted more government oversight of social media, and two-thirds supported laws to keep children under 16 years old off the platforms. When it comes to Meta in particular, in the 2026 Axios Harris 100, an annual poll about corporate reputation, Meta placed 96th out of 100. It’s only above two other social media companies, Chinese ultracheap retailer Temu, and Spirit Airlines, a defunct air carrier. Regarding ethics, Meta came in last, and it was only ahead of TikTok in trust.
The steady drip of headlines in the teen social media trials isn’t helping. Last week, Meta lost a judgment in New Mexico state court that raised their liability in that relatively small jurisdiction to nearly $1 billion dollars. On Wednesday, jury selection began for a federal case with four states suing Meta over addictive product design, and false marketing that said its platforms were safe for teenagers. In July, Meta claimed that the states are asking for a total of $1.4 trillion in damages, in addition to design changes in the apps. This is part of a multidistrict litigation, where thousands of federal trials with social media defendants are coordinated in Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ district courthouse in Oakland, Calif.
There is a separate such group of thousands of cases in California state court, mostly with individual plaintiffs. The steady drip of bad headlines from the courts will continue unless Meta decides to settle en masse.
Meanwhile, in the second quarter, Meta booked “$2.40 billion of charges related to legal proceedings,” according to its quarterly filing. That may be just the beginning.
Zuckerberg spent 6,500 words getting his utopian message out, but I can sum it up in two: Trust us. The evidence is that Meta has a long way to go to win back that trust.
