What to Know When Selling Senior Homes

For many seniors, home downsizing is a welcome relief—eventually. Initially, however, the process of selling a loved home can prove stressful.   People spend a lifetime collecting their belongings. Resultantly, you may find that senior clients need help rationalizing the downsizing of their things. You may need to help them focus on what they’ll need for their new home. For example, you’ll need to think about what will fit in their new home and what they can digitize. As a Senior Real Estate Specialist, you can also help seniors connect with other specialists in your network who can help them with the downsizing process.

Preparing for the Next Step

All home sales are complex transactions. However, moving a senior to an active adult community adds additional considerations to the sale. As an SRES certified real estate agent, you can help senior clients sort through these factors.

For example, senior clients may want to ensure that they move near family or friends. They may also want to live in a particular area for weather or health reasons.

Also, a senior client may want to live in a small urban facility with minimal services. Conversely, they may want to move to an extensive campus that will meet their social needs and provide numerous amenities.

When serving senior clients, it helps to think about the activities and amenities that will improve their quality of life. For example, a client may enjoy living near a city’s artistic and cultural events. As an SRES certified real estate agent, you can help senior clients find communities where people share their interests, beliefs, and priorities.

If you are working with seniors looking to move to their next phase - suggest our "Level of Care Tool" it is designed to help seniors and their loved ones determine the next best step in life.  It is easy to use and best of all it is free.  Seniors and their families will receive instant suggestions and a report will be sent to their email for their records or for sharing.  

Finally, it’s important to go over your senior client’s responsibility as a seller. For instance, they’ll need to make their home broom clean for the transfer of ownership.

If a senior is downsizing, they’ll most likely have many things they’ll no longer need. These things may have served them well. Naturally, they may believe that the next homeowner would value things such as a free trusty lawnmower or reliable workbench.

However, as their realtor, it’s your job to inform your senior clients that these items aren’t necessarily desirable. You’ll need to inform your clients that they’ll need to empty the house of anything not requested by the buyer. It’s better to explain this fact early, rather than wait until after the close of the sale.

If you are working with seniors who are wondering what the difference is between CCRC vs. Assisted Living or Assisted Living vs. Nursing Homes - We can help! Visit our different sections on our navigation bar for all this info.