When to Decide if Your Parents Need to Move to a Smaller Home

Selling Costs

Selling your parents’ home comes with some pretty high costs. You’ll likely have to do some facelift/style updates to get the best price, you could have 6% or more in realtor commissions. If they make enough money in the sale, capital gains taxes could take a big bite out of their earnings.

Moving Costs

Then, you have to purchase or rent somewhere new for your parents to live. If the new place is much smaller, they might end up needing to buy smaller furniture instead of just using what they have. Then, there are all the costs that come with moving: closing costs, actual movers and many other incidentals that you won’t know about until you do it.

Intangibles

Maybe moving to a sunny climate seems like a dream come true, but your parents are leaving lifelong friends, family, community and doctors with whom they’ve built relationships over time. The beach is nice, but having friends and family to spend time with is better – providing that you actually like your friends and family. Relationships are important and they aren’t as easy to develop as we’d like to assume. So don’t treat this issue too lightly. Your parents may not make new friendships in their new home as easily as they did in their old one…given that they are now in a different stage of life.

Health Concerns 

As they age, your parents’ health will become a more determining factor in all decisions. If they have mobility problems, a two-story home probably isn’t the best place to live. You can make accessibility accommodations, but the costs could be high. On the other hand, if your current layout has fewer stairs or is all on one floor, widening a few doors for walkers isn’t that much compared to the costs of selling and moving. This will allow them to stay in their home for as long as they’d would like without having to make modifications for their later years. More serious health concerns may be a reason for moving to some form of senior housing, of course, but that’s not a downsizing issue.

eXp Realty—The Results Team—is ready to help you buy or sell your home! Stop on by our location at 2623 N. Walnut St, Bloomington, IN 47404. Or call us at: (812)822-2746.