Submitted by SOS Property Transition
Nobody is ever excited about the idea of downsizing. Many seniors plan to “age in place,” but haven’t considered the hazards associated with navigating around a normal home and all the belongings accumulated over the years. This process of downsizing into a smaller household and “letting go” of a large percentage of things is one of the top five most stressful life experiences for both the downsizer and their family members.
Bringing in an experienced Move Manager can help to minimize or eliminate the anxiety that comes with a home transition.
The downsides of downsizing
The parents and adult children are often attached to the belongings since they represent family history and memories. Most don’t actually use or even want the objects — they just like to know they have them around. These items, unless there is room to display them proudly in either the parents’ new home or adult children’s home, should be sold to a new home that will appreciate and use them. Not doing so will result in the belongings taking up space and getting in everyone’s way.
The upside of SOS Property Transition Service — We will help the owner sort the belongings carefully and patiently guide them through the decision making process, being careful to not exhaust them. We generally only work a maximum of six hours per day to minimize fatigue on the current property owner. If we recognize fatigue sooner, we will stop and come back after they rest or the next day.
The angst that comes with the “letting go” decisions, object by object, can be extremely painful and heartbreaking to experience and to watch.
The upside — SOSPTS will photograph and inventory all the belongings while sorting. This allows the owner and family to look at the photos and make decisions later if they are too conflicted during the physical sorting process. The photo inventory provides a backup plan to ensure that a treasured belonging doesn’t get sold.
Keeping all the “unwanted, yet can’t let go of” items results in the cluttering of relatives’ garages, basements, and closets or it causes the expense of renting a storage unit to hold the items until decisions can be made later. Usually months and often years pass with this ongoing expense until, eventually, the expense of storing far exceeds the value of the items being stored.
The upside — SOSPTS has over 2,000 auction buyers who look to own or resell the items to new owners who will appreciate and use the belongings as they were intended.
Hiring movers can be daunting and many people rely on family members to do the lifting and loading. This puts otherwise healthy adults at great risk of injury during the process as most people do not use proper lifting techniques needed to avoid muscle injuries.
The upside — SOSPTS hires local, vetted moving contractors to do the heavy lifting and loading when it comes to moving the client to their new residence. We help with layout of the furniture and expedite the move process by proper preparation and mapping which helps the movers to minimize unnecessary down time while they are “on the clock.” It just isn’t worth the savings to potentially cause permanent injury to a family member who was only trying to help.
Many people procrastinate until they have to move the belongings out of the house and end up giving away to family, donating the items, or worse yet, throwing the items into a dumpster! The expense of packing, loading, transporting, and off-loading these items can be dangerous to do-it-yourselfers and extremely expensive, labor-wise.
The upside — SOSPTS sorts, photographs, and inventories the items onsite in preparation for the online auction. The items stay in place for a few weeks while the auction is marketed and conducted. Once the auction closes, the buyers come to the site on auction pick up day and pay for and take away their purchases. This eliminates the expensive loading and transport labor for all the belongings no one wants or needs. SOSPTS has been able to retain a substantial portion of the overall transition expense via the online auctioning of the belongings while minimizing the handling expenses. We have found this process to be the most efficient and economically effective way to distribute the unwanted belongings.
Preparation of the home for showing generally involves deep cleaning the entire home, cleaning the carpets, cleaning the windows inside and out, sometimes powerwashing the gutters, siding, patios, and garage floors or painting. There are often small plumbing repairs, and sometimes mold remediation is required in the basements. All of this coordination can be time consuming and overwhelming for those involved.
The upside — SOSPTS retains vetted contractors to take care of all the necessary work to prepare the home for showing. We can coordinate and schedule the contractors to achieve showable status quickly in order to get the home on the market as soon as possible or get a home ready for the closing date if it is already sold.
Call Dana at SOS Property Transition for a no obligation, no cost, written estimate of services along with a rough property appraisal of the belongings to be sold. We service the I-80 corridor between The Quad Cities and Des Moines. Most property transitions can be completed within four to eight weeks of order placement.
For more information about SOS Property Transition please give us a call at 563.340.6374 or visit our website at sospts.com. For auction information, please visit sospts.hibid.com.