A happy senior couple deciding if they are ready to downsize their home.

Challenges Faced When Downsizing Your Home

CHALLENGES FACED WHEN DOWNSIZING YOUR HOME

Embracing change doesn’t always come naturally. As humans, we create our routines based off of necessity and interest, and we get comfortable. Being creatures of habit, especially over time, it can become more difficult to adjust when unexpected situations arise. This is especially true when it comes to your home. It is the space where you are living your life, and likely has been for quite some time. The decision to downsize your home is often made because of personal, or financial reasons. As with any large change, this decision tends to bring a lot of both positive and negative things.

Smaller Home vs. a Larger Home

Something to consider is how you’ll feel in a smaller home vs. a larger home. If you are currently in a larger space, you might be used to it, and that is perfectly okay. In this day and age, there is a sense of accomplishment tied to having a larger living space.

However, is it really a success? If you are holding onto a larger space because you’ve worked so hard to get there, are you holding onto it for the right reasons? Larger spaces are more costly, and require more work to maintain.

It’s a lot easier to clean a 2,200 sq ft house than a 4,000 sq ft house, which gives you a significant amount of time to focus on other things. If you had more money in your pocket, and more hours in the day to spend doing things that bring you joy, isn’t that a greater success than staying in a large living space that isn’t quite right for you anymore?

Downsizing Means Getting Rid of Stuff

While there are plenty of things that initially feel like negatives when downsizing, there are solutions to lessen the impact brought on by those negative points. Some can even be turned into positives!

One of the biggest challenges that people face when downsizing, is dealing with the stuff they currently store in their house that they’ve grown into over time. If you have the space, it is likely that the space has been filled. If you’re going from 4,000 sq ft, to 2,200 sq ft, you will have the challenge of getting rid of a large portion of your possessions. This can be an emotionally taxing task.

If you are getting rid of large amounts of stuff, try not to take on all of the burden at once. If you don’t have a lot of time to prepare, you can still plan and ease the weight that you carry during that time. The trick is to do this while also not procrastinating the harder things until you’re out of time. If you have to go through all of your stuff, start with a single closet. Then, once that is complete, move to another small section of your home. By taking smaller bites at a time, you can pace yourself, and not be as emotionally or physically drained.

Going Through Your House

Another thing to consider is to have a ‘keep’ pile, a ‘maybe’ pile, and a ‘donate/sell’ pile. This way, you can visually see the progress you are making, and organizing it this way makes it easier to move forward through each section you are going through. You could even place the ‘maybe’ pile in a location where you see it during the week, and add or remove items as you go throughout your days. You might find that after more thought is given to it, that you are moving more to the ‘donate/sell’ pile without feeling so attached to those items.

Another pain point often felt when downsizing, is going through your wardrobe and clothing storage. Are you holding onto clothes that don’t fit, or that you don’t truly enjoy, because you might possibly one day have the desire or opportunity to wear it? If so, you probably won’t miss those items if they were gone. A good rule of thumb is if you haven’t worn it in the last 6-12 months, you can get rid of it and not feel that item’s absence.

Moving the furniture and larger items that you want or need to get rid of during this process can be difficult. However, you can use resources like Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist to sell your items, or to give them away for free. If you choose this route, you have the option to have the person who is buying your items come to you. Generally, they expect to come and move it out themselves. That way, you don’t have to do any heavy lifting, or worry about using a truck or trailer to haul it off. You can even make some extra money. Doing this can take the stress out of getting rid of those larger items.

Changing Location

Changing your location that may come with downsizing your home can be a tough decision. This might affect your proximity to work and friends. However, if you are eliminating the costs that come with a larger home, you may be in a great position to be more selective with your next living space. It can be hard to find the right living space when you have a particular timeline you are following with the selling process, but we may be able to help you with that. If you’ve made it this far, keep reading! It gets better.

Repairing Your Home

During this process, you may need to look into any outstanding repairs that your current home needs. This can be costly and time consuming on top of all the other things you need to focus on during this transition. If you are selling your home the traditional way, you’ll need to make those repairs. However, we may be able to take that off of your shoulders for you. We buy homes whether they need repairs or not, so you can cross ‘home repairs’ off of your to-do list!

Need to Downsize? We Can Help.

Ultimately, if downsizing is right or necessary for you, we hope you have a smooth process and can easily accomplish what you need to. We also might have the ability to help you, and even eliminate some of your pain points entirely.

We buy homes in any condition, and you get to choose your closing date, from as little as a week to as long as 6 months. This can eliminate the stress of realtor fees, finding a buyer, making repairs, having an inconvenient close date, and going through the arduous selling process. One quick conversation will determine if this is an option for you (spoiler alert: it probably is!) and give you peace of mind. Give us a call us at 316-536-0132. We are more than happy to discuss if this can benefit you, and give you a no-obligation cash offer. Your answers are just one call away.