How to know when to move on from the family home

The idea of selling the family home can be one of the biggest and hardest decisions to make.

After all, that is where many wonderful memories have been made. 

That is not a good reason to stay. In fact, staying in the home you have lived in for so long can actually be a burden.

Your very first home is often a smaller one, but then when family comes along you buy bigger to accommodate.

Now that the family has moved on to their own homes you can be stuck in a place that is too big for your current needs.

It can be overwhelming, trying to keep up the maintenance on a place, including the garden, that is much larger than you can manage on your own.

Does any of that sound like you?

Rather than downsizing, Clarissa Brandt from Care to Move suggests it is time to rightsize. That is, moving to a place that is right for you.

That could be a smaller, more manageable sized house or it could be a retirement village, shared accommodation or a nursing home, whatever suits your needs.

Clarissa said there were many benefits to making the decision.

Not only could it be financially beneficial, as you could have money available from the sale of your home, it could also free up a lot of your time, allowing you to spend more of it doing your favourite things, like hobbies, travelling or spending time with family and friends.

The next step that was often a big hurdle was sorting through possessions and Clarissa said many found it initially hard working out what to keep and what to discard.

“They had to save up for such a long time to get those items,” Clarissa said.

“Everything has a story and part of that is letting go.”

The first step was getting rid of things that were no longer needed. For example, if you were moving into a facility that does the bulk of the gardening, you could clean out the garden shed.

As a bonus, you could sell some of those items and have some extra cash in your pocket.

Clarissa believes that once the process of decluttering is started, and things start to go, people actually start to feel lighter and it makes the next stages of the move easier to deal with.

“It is the memories that are them, not the things.”

Care to Move offers help to people looking to rightsize, working with them through all the stages from making the decisions on where to move, downsizing the clutter and then relocation to their new home.

Clarissa started the business with her former schoolmate Leah Steinberg and said part of the joy was helping people get through a situation that can often be overwhelming.

Here are her tips to start ‘rightsizing’ today.

• Get some advice from a real estate agent on what your property might be worth, and anything that might need attending to before a sale
• Start looking at your options for your new location. Think of what type of lifestyle you are looking for, and location you would like to live in, and research your options. 
• Start the declutter early. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t planning on moving any time soon. The more time you have the less pressure you will feel. Look for things you can easily sell, and work out any family heirlooms you would like to pass on and do it. Work on one room at a time and create piles for donation, selling, giveaway or throw away. Once you get started you might be amazed at how good it feels.

Have you ‘rightsized’ already? What are your tips?