From “For Sale” to “Sold” — Selling Your Home in Winter

By Sarah Koons, guest blogger

It’s almost winter and the weather outside is frightful, but living in a senior community is so delightful! If you are considering moving into a retirement community, but own a home, don’t let Jack Frost deter you from proceeding with your plans. With the help of experienced retirement community professionals, realtors and supportive family members, the process of selling your home in winter can become not only doable, but mark the beginning of a new chapter of your life. Fortunately, there are many things senior homeowners can do to increase the salability of their home in the winter months.

Passing Thanks: When to Give Your Possessions to Loved Ones

By Anne Gill, guest blogger

We all know Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks and gather with friends and family. For seniors looking to downsize, it’s also a perfect time to pass on meaningful possessions or purge unwanted paraphernalia.

“Many of us live in homes with an attic, basement and one-to-two levels of living space, not to mention a shed in the backyard,” says Margit Novack, president of Moving Solutions, a senior move management company. Tack on 40 years of living in one dwelling, and the thought of excavating these spaces becomes overwhelming.

Boxes of Life: Lightening the Load

By: Ann Burnside Love

It’s summer, time to shed layers of clothing … and other belongings as well.

Whether you’re beginning to think about moving to a senior retirement community, or you’re moving soon, or if you took entirely too much to your new retirement residence — planning to think about it afterwards, as many people do — here are suggestions for handling all those boxes which contain chapters of your life.

Working on Your Moving Plans After This Year's Weather Extremes?

By Ann Burnside Love

While enjoying the fireplace in our lobby’s sitting room, a lovely neighbor came up to me with a friend who’s moving into our retirement community a few months from now. The friend said she enjoys reading the newspaper column I’ve written for years. When I heard her voice, I realized that I remembered her from a group we both belonged to in our 30s.

“I’m moving this year because I can’t stay on the farm through another winter,” she said. “I can’t do all the stuff required through as much snow and ice as we’ve experienced recently. Actually, I’ve been downsizing for five years, so it won’t be as big a deal to move as it might have been.”

So she’s positioned herself to make the move she really wants to make. And she’s taken steps to make it possible. She’s decided on a retirement community, gotten onto the waiting list, been what we call “right sizing” for years, and she’s recognized now is the time.

What Made You Decide to Move?

By Ann Burnside Love

For this week’s blog, I introduced myself to some new neighbors, and asked them why they decided to move into a senior living community like the one I call home.

He says: “We had accumulated all these things together during our marriage. We were getting up in age. Rather than leave one of us to have all that to deal with, we decided to move into one of the beautiful new patio cottages this community has built. We’ve been here a month and can already tell it was exactly the right thing for us to do.”

She says: “We still need to go back to our house and finish sorting out the last of our possessions, so we can put the house on the market at the beginning of next month. We’re almost finished, thank goodness. We’re quite ready to settle down and have time to experience more about our new surroundings!”

The Dumbest Thing I Actually Worried About Before Moving

By Ann Burnside Love

It had to do with something I’d never lacked before and truly valued above much else. Actually, I felt guilty that I was even thinking about this possibility, but so it was.

Separately, I was happy and excited about the apartment I’d chosen. I was practical enough not to really worry about the actual moving process, once my daughter and I planned it down to the tiniest detail. A lot of the important-to-me worry stuff was being taken care of — having to do with possessions I was passing along to the next generations.

My oversize recliners, comfortable and beloved by all, went to No. 2 Son and his family, my piano to No. 3 Son whose young family loved music. The round dining room table and chairs, with carpet, went to No. 1 Son’s family. And the capacious mahogany buffet from my late husband’s family went to my daughter, along with a selection of the china, silver and linens that lived within. Then the whole family, including grown grandchildren, got to choose a share of the lovely things left throughout the house — bargaining with each other so politely I was stunned. My concern about fairness was resolved.

But when all that was settled, I was still left with inside-the-churning-brain worry, the dark kind: I was entering a group of a couple hundred people. Would I be comfortable with the established residents and they with me? I knew a few, but just acquaintances. Would there be people with whom to converse, think aloud, learn from … and laugh?

What's it really like, those first days?

By Ann Burnside Love

For weeks I‘d imagined the scene: On my first full day as a new retirement community resident, I would leave my pile of boxes and go down in the elevator for lunch, and walk the curving hall, with big windows overlooking the lovely pond with fountains and water lilies, to the dining room entrance. Study the lunch menu in the lighted case for the first time, then walk into the dining room and find a seat. By myself. Surrounded by examining eyes.

I’ve been on my own for a lot of years: Decades ago, as a young widow, I founded a little marketing company that grew way beyond anyone’s expectations. Traveled the country to clients alone, been in professional meetings with total strangers. Circulated and made new acquaintances in crowded rooms. Eaten in lots of restaurants alone. Confident and independent, you bet. But now it would be different. I would be a newcomer, no longer in charge. This entrance …

Do I Stay, or Do I Go?

By Ann Burnside Love

One might have thought that I, of all people, would not have hesitated when it was time to move into a retirement community. As the founder of a senior living marketing company, I’d visited scores of communities, led the planning and fulfillment of their marketing needs, and along the way written tens of thousands of words about them.

So I knew very well how to recognize when it was decision-making time for myself. That didn’t mean I would decide, of course. (“I’m not ready yet!”) Oh yes, I knew the decision-making and moving drills very well — and how to advise others! However, my whole background had made me, shall we say, very independent.