Selling the family home can be daunting for many different reasons. The overwhelming thoughts on how to even begin this process may include the following –
- After 30+ years in the home, the house is full of all this “Stuff”
- Who is going to help with getting my home ready to sell
- What about home repairs or improvements needing to be done before selling
- I need the money from the home sale to help pay for my assisted living care
This is just a short list of concerns and every family’s situation is unique and different. This article will simplify this daunting task and outline a few of my network of resources I’ll put around you creating an efficient and least stressful transitioning experience.
There are numerous services my senior clients and their family can utilize to begin the planning process before selling the family home. As a Seniors Real Estate Specialist, SRES, I dedicate my professional services to seniors and their families who are transitioning to senior living and have a home to sell. After many years, I have found these three planning areas to be most beneficial to my senior clients. There may be more but these are most helpful.
Transitioning Services: This team of professionals will help organize and coordinate the entire moving process for my senior clients from their current home to their new senior living community home. This expert team deals with all the personal property “the Stuff” in the home. They organize all the stuff into four buckets – Keep, Sell, Donate, Dispose. Once the team understands what the senior client and family want to Keep, the team will pack, move and unpack the senior client in their new home in 24 hours. All the boxes are gone, beds are made and towels are hung. We always want to transition the senior to their new home first and then the team addresses the other three buckets, Sell, Donate, Dispose afterward.
Elder Law Attorney Consultation: The Elder Law Attorney consultation is a critically important discussion for the senior client. The Elder Law Attorney utilizes every source of long term care funding other than your assets, such as long term care insurance, VA benefits, and Medicaid benefits, to ensure your assets stretch as long as possible. In addition, they’ll make sure all your legal documents (Durable Power of Attorney, Health Surrogate & Wills) are in place before selling the family home. Finally, they help avoid costly Probate or Guardianship court proceedings. This consultation takes place early and before selling the family home.
Getting the Home Ready to Sell: Notice this is the third step in the planning process because as your Seniors Real Estate Specialist, we want to transition the senior client first and then go back and address the remaining personal property in the house, the Sell, Donate and Dispose buckets. Once the house is emptied of “all the stuff”, I’ll do my assessments and preparation. My assessments may include suggestions for minor repairs, improvements or specialty services if it creates a return on investment. Once my assessments are completed, 70% of my listings are sold As-Is. My listing service preparations include professional cleaning services, floor plan and square footage documentation and professional photography including virtual tours, labelled and captioned listing photos and drone(aerial).
These three important planning steps creates an exceptional transitioning experience for my senior clients when sell their family home. As your Seniors Real Estate Specialist, SRES, my extensive network of resources are available to address your individual family needs.
Kent Lee, SRES
Seniors Real Estate Specialist
Homepage Realty
Cell 502-649-5921
www.kyseniorliving.com