How do you know when it’s the right time to downsize?
Nobody wakes up one morning certain about this.
The thought usually arrives quietly and then gets put aside, because it’s too much to think about. Where do you start? What do you actually do? Will you lose your independence, and the person you’ve been here? Most people can’t picture their life outside the place they’ve lived in for decades.
Meanwhile the days keep passing. Things get a little harder, a bit at a time, and you stop taking notice, because you’ve already adjusted around them. So people wait for a signal clear enough to act on. The honest answer is that it rarely arrives on its own.
The things you stop noticing
Ask anyone who has already made this move and they’ll tell you the same thing: they wish they’d done it sooner. Not because the house was wrong, but because putting it off was easier than starting, and starting turned out to be the hard part.
The signs are rarely dramatic. They look like this.
Rooms nobody has used in years.
A garden you used to enjoy that now needs someone paid to come and do it, and they don’t do it the way you would.
Odd jobs piling up around the house.
Planning your day around the stairs without quite admitting that’s what you’re doing.
Fewer get-togethers, because everyone is busy.
A houseful of belongings, and nobody in the family who wants them.
One of you managing a four-bedroom home alone, after a lifetime of managing it together.
Decisions that were always made by two people, now sitting with one.
Wanting someone to talk to on an ordinary afternoon, and there not being many people around.
Not one of those is an emergency. That’s exactly why they get explained away.
Do I just stay?
Staying put is a legitimate answer, and it deserves to be taken seriously rather than talked out of you.
If the house still works, the neighbours are good, and you can mostly manage the upkeep, staying can be the right call. In-home care can be delivered to you as things change, which takes some of the load off without moving anywhere.
But there will come a time when, slowly, the things that were fine aren’t. The difference between a move you chose and a move that happened to you is almost entirely a question of when the thinking started.
So future-proof it. Go and look at a few options: a smaller house, a townhouse, a village, a lifestyle community. Not to buy, just so you know what’s out there and what you would actually want. It might be a decision for three years’ time, and when it comes you’ll already know where you want to be. You might also surprise yourself and find the right time is sooner than you thought.
If you’re not sure how those options differ from one another, we’ve set them out plainly here.
It’s too hard. Where do I even start?
It all seems too hard, so the easiest thing to do is nothing: stay put and manage the best you can. That doesn’t make it the right thing.
What people underestimate is how much of this is already somebody else’s job.
Downsizing and decluttering specialists who sort, pack and move, and who do this every week of the year.
Solicitors who can advise you on what you’re signing at both ends: where you’re going, and what you’re leaving.
Financial advisers who can work out which move actually makes sense for your circumstances.
Removalists, stylists and trades who get the home ready for sale.
Ray White Downsizing was built to help with this. We do it every day, and we sit at the centre of a network of people we know and trust to handle the parts that aren’t ours. There are no referral fees in either direction, so an introduction only ever happens because someone is genuinely right for you.
Two versions of this move
Almost every move we’re involved in is one of two kinds.
The one you decide on
This one is on your terms. You are advised properly, and the campaign is built around you rather than around a deadline. You pick the season you go to market in. You see the campaign through. You look at smaller homes, villages and communities before you commit to any of them. You sort the house over months instead of a weekend. You are in control of the move, and the family isn’t trying to make the right decision for you under pressure.
The one that gets decided for you
A fall. A hospital discharge with a date attached. A diagnosis. A partner who can no longer manage at home. The house goes to market in a fortnight because a bed has come up and it has to be paid for. Forty years of belongings get cleared by whoever is available. Someone else, usually an adult child doing their best under pressure, chooses the next place.
Same house, same family, and a very different result — financially and otherwise.
What people say afterwards
“We’d been putting it off for nearly two years before we met Kirralee. She took us through everything at our own pace, and made sure our daughters were involved when we wanted them there. We love where we are now, should’ve done it years ago!” — Harold and Elsie, Indooroopilly
That last line comes up more than any other. Across hundreds of these moves, Kirralee has never had someone tell her they wished they had waited longer. She has lost count of the ones who wished they had gone sooner.
If you are somewhere in the middle
Most people are. Not ready, not not-ready, just turning it over.
That is the right time to have the conversation, not the wrong one. Three things you can do that commit you to nothing:
Find out what the home is realistically worth. It’s the number every other decision hangs off, and plenty of people ask a year or two before they sell, just to know where they stand.
Go and look at two or three places you could imagine ending up, with no intention of buying anything.
Start with one cupboard. Not the house. One cupboard.
If you’d like to know what the home is worth and how the timing might work for you, call Kirralee on 0418 871 554. She’ll talk it through and then leave you to it. No cost, no commitment, and no expectation that you’re going anywhere. If it helps, the questions people usually ask before they call are all answered on the site.
And if you’d rather just stay across the market for a while, Ray White Downsizing can send you the local numbers and downsizing updates, so when the time does feel right you’re already informed.
About Ray White Downsizing
A specialist Brisbane service for people selling the family home to move into a retirement village, an over-50s community, a smaller home, or residential aged care.
Kirralee Couch leads it, with 16 years in property and close to a decade of that inside the retirement living industry. She handles every sale herself and coordinates it around the rest of the move, at the pace that suits the family.
Thinking about downsizing? Call Kirralee today.