Downsizing your home is a chore, and one that can be tackled with a little help. Lynn Norusis with the FOCUS on NoVA Real Estate team digs into the steps that one should take, from initial thought of downsizing through the sale of a home. She also gives helpful recommendations on the companies that can be utilized throughout the process to make sure the process runs smoothly and makes the seller some extra money.

After you have made the decision that now is the time to downsize there’s some very important steps that need to be taken.

Always talk to a financial expert to find out what it is that you need to know specifically for your situation to be able to move forward with this.

Once you have determined that you are able to sell your current home and move into another one, you want to take stock as to what you have. So what are those next steps, because it can be overwhelming. What you want to do is, you need to organize. This can be a simple process and there are many people out there who can help with this, so if you need some recommendations by all means get in touch with us.

Next, you need to determine what you’re taking. In order to do that, it’s always great to work with a real estate agent to get an idea as to what type of home you will be moving into so you can find out or figure out how much space you’re moving into. Then determine how many pieces or which specific pieces of furniture you will to be able to bring with you and that can all be done just figuring out how much square footage you’re going from, into what that new place is going to have to offer.

The second thing that you want to think about is after deciding what you are keeping, what do you want to sell. There are a lot of companies out there that work with people who are downsizing to sell their items, and that can be something that’s either done in person or strictly online. Again, we have some great recommendations for that.

You may also have some items that you want to donate because they do hold value and you know someone else can really love and cherish those items–maybe you were a hobbyist who collected a certain type of train, or anything else–china–anything like that, we also have companies that we work with who are knowledgeable in that field to really help understand who those need to go to as well.

Then the last thing is if you are either donating to an organization or you just have items that just need to be trashed, we have specific companies who work with that–getting those items out of your house; distributing them to the nonprofits that they need to go to; and then taking whatever is left over and bringing it to the dump. Now as you are going through this process sometimes it is hard, so we have recommendations of people who can come in and help you determine what those steps are to get you to that point.

Once you know where you’re going, what you can bring, and what you are getting rid of, then the transaction turns into your typical sell-buy transaction of putting the home on the market; marketing it and getting you the best price and best return on investment.

If you have any questions about Northern Virginia real estate, reach out as we are happy to help.