Downsizing is a hot topic for people in my age group. In 2021, my husband and I sold our beloved home of 18 years and downsized, so I know from personal experience that this transition is a tough one, both emotionally and logistically. We have also helped a lot of clients through this process.
Many of us reach a point when the giant, multi-story home that was perfect for having all our kids’ friends gather no longer works. Once the kids are gone, these homes can seem downright cavernous. It also feels kind of wasteful to maintain a large home for just one or two people in the hopes the kids will visit a couple of times a year.
In today’s low inventory market, it can be a challenge to find that new “right sized” home, and some people worry about listing their home before they find a new home. One way around this is to buy new construction. If you buy a home under construction, you have time to prepare and sell your current home before closing on the new home.
This is what we ended up doing. The challenge here is that you might have to move twice if you sell your large home before the new home is ready. We did this and it worked out fine for us. We purchased an interim condo and turned it into a rental when we moved out.
How to Downsize
Here is our step-by-step plan for downsizing if you plan on moving just once into a smaller home.
Prepare your home to sell.
We feel this is the most important step in obtaining top dollar for your home. You may have to do massive decluttering and painting and get the handyman to finally fix those projects you have been putting off for years. Give yourself time to get these tasks accomplished. We have vendors we can recommend.
Price your home.
We like to price our homes just before we launch the listings so we can take the most recent comparable sales into account. We base our recommended price on how our listings compare to competing homes in terms of location, size, condition, and amenities. Which of these can the owner control? Condition. That’s why we place a lot of emphasis on preparing our homes to sell.
Launch the listing.
We know that if the property is priced right and has the best exposure, we will obtain offers that we can negotiate.
Negotiate the transaction.
If our owner does not have a home ready to move into, we negotiate a leaseback or long closing. We prefer leasebacks to avoid unexpected problems with long closings. In over 20 years of experience selling real estate, we have seen the unexpected happen, even with hundreds of thousands of dollars in non-refundable earnest money. There is nothing more disappointing than putting your home back on the market if the buyer doesn’t close on it.
We really shine when it comes to the due diligence negotiation. We have saved our clients thousands of dollars by preventing them from agreeing to credits and repairs.
Manage the transaction.
From contract to close, we manage the negotiation so that our sellers have time to move their belongings to their new home, storage, or a donation location. We take the stress out of the process because we negotiate about one contract per week, compared with the average Park City realtor, who negotiates one contract per year. We have the confidence and experience to make sure our clients are taken care of and hold their hands through every step of the process.
The downsizing process is unique right now because of the limited inventory for replacement properties and because many of our clients who are downsizing have lived in their homes for a long time and have accumulated a lot of things over the years.
In many cases, they are still holding on to things that belong to their adult children. There is a lot of emotional attachment to leaving a home with many memories. I know this firsthand. Justin helped his parents sell the home he grew up in. We get it and are here to lend our expertise and take the stress out of what can be a very stressful process.