People make the decision to move – or stay in their home – for a number of reasons, but at its heart, you stay in a place that works well for your life and you leave a place that is no longer a good fit.
There is an expression we’ve heard people use on a number of occasions when they’re very happy in their home.
“They’ll take me out of here in a pine box.”
The idea behind that is you’ll live in perfect health, with no mobility issues, fully enjoying (and taking care of) your home until you die peacefully in bed at the age of 101. If it happens, it’s wonderful, but it doesn’t often go exactly to plan.
When a sudden change in circumstances related to your health and mobility immediately makes your home a challenging place to live, it can be a stressful and difficult time. Navigating a change to your health while dealing with the decisions and work needed to sell your home quickly and at the best price is never an ideal situation.
We’ve helped a number of clients out in such situations and, while we’re always happy to help, we’d much rather help them avoid those circumstances in the first place. We much prefer to work with our eventual seller clients in the months or years before such a situation could occur. After all, it’s always a good idea to hope for the best, but plan for the worst. It may not turn out as well as you’d hoped, but if you take some steps beforehand, it also isn’t nearly as bad an outcome as being unprepared!
Here are our three simple suggestions for what to do now, so you don’t have to worry about it later.
If it’s dusty, do it now.
One common thing as you age in your long-time home is a change in what parts of the home get used as often. The kitchen may remain a daily destination for decades, but as children move out or hobbies fade, some spaces can become mostly unused. Even within a room that you use regularly, you can have cupboards, bookshelves and furniture that no longer get used.
A good rule of thumb is that if the only time you’re in a room or using a piece of furniture is to dust it off, you should consider updating or clearing it out. Here are a few examples.
- Your four-bedroom home now has three guest bedrooms. One is used a couple of times a year when family visits, but the other two haven’t been used at the same time in more than a decade. Yes, it’s nice to have a lot of space for a possible invasion of friends and extended family, but one guest room is probably all you actually need. Clearing out those rooms is a task that will eventually need to be done, so why not do it at your own pace? Find friends, family or charities that would love to take the bedroom set and move some of your mostly unused but treasured furniture in and create a sitting room.
- You rarely park in the garage because a past hobby that you haven’t been focused on in years is taking up the space. If you used to enjoy woodworking and carpentry but haven’t used the equipment since the 1990s, sell, donate or give it to someone who is passionate about the hobby. You get to enjoy it seeing it put to use again and now you can park your car in the garage!
- The cabinet in your formal dining room – as well as the dining set – don’t see much action these days and when you do use it, it never seems worth setting out the fancy dishware. Keep the cabinet, but give away the china and glassware to someone who will use it and appreciate it. If you’d rather sell or donate it, do that instead. Fill the cabinet with some art pieces or family heirlooms that you don’t have on display now.
If you can get rid of some items you no longer use and repurpose such spaces for what you still do enjoy, it takes a number of things off your eventual list without impacting your daily life.
Fix one, use the other.
Any home that has been in the same family for a long time tends to be less updated and in need of freshening up to current standards and trends. A kitchen may have been updated twice in the forty years you’ve been there, but the last time was more than a decade ago and it is showing its age.
As the number of people in the home shrinks, you may find yourself in a situation where you have more bathrooms, bedrooms or even kitchens than you need. Bathrooms are the most common example of this, where the two full bathrooms and two powder rooms are now never in demand at the same time.
In such situations, a renovation of the most dated space can be done while you continue to use the other option. This isn’t the most cost-effective way to do a renovation, but it is certainly a lot easier to live through. In addition, if you don’t do it at all is likely going to cost you more in a lower sale price than whatever additional costs incurred by doing renovations on a piecemeal basis.
This logic can apply to whole sections or even floors of your home. If you’ve got a basement that hasn’t been used in years except for laundry, update it! Start by adding laundry to a part of the home that is easy to access if you eventually have mobility issues and once that is done, get rid of the carpet and wallpaper in the basement and give it a fresh new look. You are futureproofing your home to stay in it longer and adding value for an eventual sale.
Make it good for you – and everyone else!
Our final suggestion is to lean in to the new version of you that is living in the home. Aging comes with changes in behaviour and ability and what might have once been easy can become difficult.
Such changes also come with opportunities to improve your home both for yourself as well as an eventual buyer who will appreciate it themselves. If you make some updates to your home that refresh the space and also allows you to enjoy it longer, you are creating a win-win.
Here are some examples of what we mean.
- If you’ve started using a cane or a walker for ease of getting around the home, you may find that the wall to wall carpet you once enjoyed now makes it harder to move about. Replace it with new high quality flooring so it is easier for you to live your life – and makes it more appealing to an eventual buyer.
- If you would love more space in your master bathroom to manoeuvre in and out of the bathtub, or make going to the washroom easier, then expand and renovate the bathroom! It is an inconvenience to live through a renovation, but if you plan on being in the home for years longer, then you’ll get lots of benefit from that short-term inconvenience. At the same time, you have a new, larger ensuite bathroom that future buyers will also appreciate.
- If your backyard has crumbling stairs, rotting wood decks or other deteriorated aspects to it, fix it with an eye to accessibility. Replace those uneven stairs with a gentle ramp with railings and flowerbeds on one side, making it easier for you to enjoy the outdoor space for years to come and making it more appealing for any future purchaser.
If you make changes to your home now that serve you well and update the space in ways a buyer will appreciate, it is a win-win.
The biggest stress that comes with the sale of a long-time home is the sheer number of decisions that need to be made, many of which have emotional aspects. Let’s end by seeing how following our three suggestions above allows you to focus on other things.
- By giving away or selling things you no longer use over time, you make an eventual sale so much easier to handle. The possessions you cherished have been passed on, at your own pace, and over time.
- By updating or refreshing spaces you no longer use, you add value to your home for an eventual sale, and at the same, you give any occasional visitors to the home an updated space to enjoy. It isn’t overly disruptive as they are literally spaces you don’t use, and you don’t have to worry about doing it when you or your estate sells the home.
- By renovating to make your home work better for the current and future versions of yourself, you can both extend the time you enjoy your home as well as make it more appealing for a purchaser. It is inconvenient to live through, but if you get years of benefit from it, the value is clearly there.
If you like the idea of controlling the pace and work done to prepare for an eventual sale – either by yourself if your health changes, or by your estate – then get in touch with us. We promise we won’t make a hard push and we’ll give you recommendations for what to do, as well as who does good work.
