Posts Tagged “Senior Living”
As you get older, you may realize that surrounding yourself with a lifetime of memories has a cost to you. Your home may be so cluttered that downsizing to a smaller house, senior apartment, or assisted living facility is an overwhelming project. Even if you want to stay in your current home, you may need to clear space so you can move through your home in a wheelchair, or you may need to accommodate a live-in caregiver. When your home is overloaded with too much furniture and clothing or too many knickknacks and treasures from the past, you may find yourself feeling stuck.
The Challenges of Decluttering
When you try to approach the clutter yourself, you can find plenty of resources that suggest how to plan a decluttering project. Start with a room at a time, the articles say, or do little work each day until you have a manageable amount of possessions. Call in a relative to help make the job easier. For seniors, these suggestions might not be workable, especially if you are not in good health, if you have no relatives able to help, or if you need to make a quick move.
For most people, one of the hardest things in parting with possessions that DIY approaches do not address is that “things” acquire emotional value beyond their monetary worth. While looking over boxes of old memorabilia that chronicles your life or the early life of your children can bring closure, the decluttering process can be time-consuming and not extensive enough.
Hiring The Pros Can Get the Job Done
One of the most effective ways to whittle your possessions down to size is to obtain help of professionals who specialize in decluttering. As an objective third-party, the professionals do not have the same attachment to your possessions as you do, so they can move through your house quickly and help you decide what to keep, what to throw out, and what to donate. A good decluttering firm is respectful of your memories while getting the job done. Whether you are trying to make more room in your current location or you need to move to a smaller space, the pros have the experience to know exactly what will fit. They can do the job quickly and at a reasonable price.
Request Your Complimentary Copy of My “Preparing to Downsize” Report
Who to Call
While you could run a classified ad in Kijiji one of the safest ways to obtain the help is to hire a professional organizer. There are several local firms that specialize in decluttering in Halifax. When you hire a firm, they will take care of arranging to have your unneeded possessions hauled away.
Looking to sell your home? Give me a call today.
Roy Thomas SRES® (Senior’s Real Estate Specialist) is a REALTOR® with Sutton Group Professional Realty. Since 1991, Roy specializes in helping retirees with their later in life real estate transactions. Call Roy at 902-497-3031 or contact Roy here
When you are retired and have less income to meet emergencies, take vacations, or handle a big-ticket repair, keep in mind that you have a ready source of cash at hand: your house. Your home is likely the largest financial asset you have. You can put your home equity to work for you.
You may have approached retirement with no plans to sell your home, especially if the mortgage is paid off. When you own free and clear your costs to live there are vastly reduced, although the taxes, repair and maintenance costs, and utilities bills go on. Your home is an asset that can be tapped to improve your quality of life. You should think carefully about how to use the value of it when doing financial planning and develop a strategy to access your home equity if you need the funds by either selling the home or borrowing against it.
When You Might Want To Sell
Does your home still work for you in your senior years? Is it where you want to be? Is it too big? Does it accommodate your physical needs? You may realize it is too big for you or not near enough to the kids. If your health is failing, you may need to consider assisted living or at least find a home that is a better fit to your needs. Selling the home will free up cash.
Thinking of relocating? If you move to less expensive home or condo, you could purchase with cash and have money left over to help fund your retirement.
Becoming a renter. This gives you the option to take all your home equity and invest it to produce a monthly income. You can also pay off any mortgage debt you may have. Plus you eliminate the ongoing expenses of property tax, repairs and maintenance.
When You Might Want to Borrow
If you aren’t ready to sell, you have alternatives that allow you access a lump sum of cash or an ongoing stream. Taking a home equity line of credit (HELOC) can offer you access to cash for emergencies. Assuming you qualify for a home equity loan, a HELOC is a good way to put on a new roof or take the trip of a lifetime.
If you need to supplement your monthly income, a reverse mortgage will pull cash from your home that does not have to paid back until you sell the house or pass away. You can choose either to receive a lump sum or monthly payments, or both. Your home equity is your money and having it in hand can relieve the stress of daily living.
Should You Access Your Home Equity?
The family home should be part of your retirement planning. Using the equity to improve your retirement years is something you have earned. There is no benefit to struggling financially while hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity sits unused in your home.
Looking to sell your home? Give me a call today.
Roy Thomas SRES® (Senior’s Real Estate Specialist) is a REALTOR® with Sutton Group Professional Realty. Since 1991, Roy specializes in helping retirees with their later in life real estate transactions. Call Roy at 902-497-3031 or contact Roy here
If you have decided to downsize into a smaller place, you’ve already made the difficult decision to sell your home. The next set of difficult decisions involves what to take with you. In your new home, you won’t have the room for everything you own. Also, you have made the decision to downsize your living space, so it makes no sense to be overcrowded from day one. You have to approach the process as one of getting ready for your new life, not shutting down the old one.
In most homes, you can get rid of 30% of its contents and never miss it for a second. How much could you live without it your new home?
Deciding What Makes The Cut
Discarding, selling, or giving your possessions away can be a grueling experience, as for most of us clothes, knickknacks, and other items can be like old friends we don’t want to part with even if we have nothing more in common. When you know you’re going to move, here are a few things that you can do to make decluttering and downsizing less painful.
– Take time to grieve. Give yourself time to go through the decluttering process so that you can unemotionally part with what you know you need to part with.
– Break your decluttering down into small projects. If you mark on your calendar to clean out old cosmetics in the bathroom one day, purge your CDs and DVDs the next, and tackle the bookshelf on another day, you will feel less overwhelmed and have a sense of satisfaction when you are done for the day.
– Make every item pass the test of “Will this contribute to my new life? “If not, delegate the item to the pile of things you are discarding. Not sure what to give away and are what to pitch? Ask yourself “will this item contribute to someone else’s life?”.
– Leave no stone unturned. Keep in mind that no area of your possessions should be safe from the evaluation. If you have prided yourself on your good cooking all your life, you are not obliged to keep every cookbook you’ve ever bought. Keep your favorites or pass them on to your kids, and pack up the rest. If you love kitchen gadgets, seriously consider what you use. If that pasta maker or ice cream maker has years of dust on it, it’s time to pass it on.
Request Your Complimentary Copy of My “Preparing to Downsize” Report
– Give yourself a few breaks. If you come across something you love but don’t use, you may let it slip into the pile of items to take. If you do that too much, your pile won’t shrink enough to fit into your new home. You can however put a few items aside to reevaluate later down the decluttering process.
– Take it away. Nothing makes it easier for you to second-guess yourself than to have boxes or bags of unwanted items hanging around your home. When you have a few breaks, get them to their destination. You won’t be tempted to pull items out of the discard pile and will see the results of your hard work.
Looking to sell your home? Give me a call today.
Roy Thomas SRES® (Senior’s Real Estate Specialist) is a REALTOR® with Sutton Group Professional Realty. Since 1991, Roy specializes in helping retirees with their later in life real estate transactions. Call Roy at 902-497-3031 or contact Roy here