Downsizing is a common event for seniors, and it is often a very beneficial event too. When seniors no longer need their large homes anymore, they will often decide to move to smaller ones, and many seniors choose to move to maintenance-free homes to eliminate some of their responsibilities. If you are helping your senior parent plan a move like this, here are three tips that will help make this move easier and less stressful for everyone involved.

Decide What Type of Home to Buy and Make a Plan for Buying and Selling

One of the tricky parts of downsizing is finding a house to buy and selling the current home all at the same time. In fact, it is almost impossible to plan this out with perfect timing. In other words, you cannot expect to list your parent's home for sale, sell it, buy a new home, and plan these closings for the same days.

In most cases, it will be easiest to start looking for a home to buy first just to get an idea of what type your parent wants. Next, you can list your parent's home for sale. As soon as it sells, you can start working on the process of choosing the right home for your parent and getting the closing rolling. This entire process can take some time, and it can be difficult if your parent is indecisive.

Help Your Parent Get Rid of Things

The second thing you will need to assist with is helping your parent get rid of things he or she owns. Downsizing means moving from a bigger home to a smaller one, and this will almost always require getting rid of a lot of things in order to fit in the new, smaller home. The hardest part with this step can often be convincing a senior parent to get rid of enough stuff to make this possible.

Helping your parent do this might require physically helping him or her with this. You might need to go there every week for several months and work through different areas of the home decluttering and throwing things away. Without doing this, your parent will not have enough room in the new home for all the things he or she has.

Hire a Moving Company to Complete the Work

Finally, you can simplify this entire process by hiring a company to do the work. A moving company is a company that will physically transport a person's things from one place to another, but moving companies typically offer more services than just this.

One service you might want to hire the movers to do is provide you with packing supplies. If you do not think you will have time to help your parent pack, you could also hire them to pack your parent's things for him or her. If you decide to do this, be sure you have fully decluttered the home before they arrive because they will pack everything that is there when they arrive. They will not typically do this until the day before moving day.

Secondly, you could hire the movers to disassemble all your parent's furniture and then reassemble it when they move him or her. This can be helpful for beds, dressers, desks, and any other types of furniture that requires being taken apart and then being put back together.

Downsizing is not always an easy task, but it is often the best thing for seniors. If your parent is ready to make this move, contact a local moving company to find out what types of services they offer to help make this move as easy and stress-free as possible.

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