After your children have moved out, either to start their
adult lives or to attend college, your once-busy-and-full home can seem
strangely quiet and empty. Many older adults who find themselves in this
situation decide to downsize and move into a smaller Ottawa home. Downsizing
can be financially beneficial, but it can also be a long and involved process
if you aren't careful.
The Two Sides of Downsizing
Downsizing involves selling your current Ottawa home and
purchasing (or renting) a new and smaller one. If you plan it correctly, you
can save a considerable amount of money when you sell your Ottawa home and
purchase a new one. But, keep in mind that home prices have risen since you
first purchased decades ago. You might be surprised at the asking price for
even a small home in your area.
You might have some emotional attachments to your current
home that might get in the way of you effectively selling it. Typically,
there's the urge to price your home high, since the home has so many memories
for you. But, remember that your emotions are not the same as the emotions of
the buyer. So, you need an objective
person to help you sort out these emotion-laden thought and ideas. This is where a real estate agent can help
you determine the price for your home based on a comparative study of the
prices of similar homes in your area.
Weigh the cost of purchasing a new home carefully. Depending
on how old you are and your financial goals, you might want to purchase your
empty-nest home outright, instead of getting another mortgage. Paying cash for
your new home means you may actually pay less in the long run as well as you
will incur no interest charges. Obtaining a mortgage can also be financially
beneficial if you utilize this money to buy other investment properties or
other holdings.
Another way to downsize and save money is to move in with
your grown children.
Making Room
When you move to a smaller Ottawa home, you can't take all
the possessions in your current space with you. Although this fact is
undeniably true and a physical reality, some downsizers are depressed by this
fact. Others, however, are elated. Regardless, downsizing means trimming the
items you own, not just reducing the size of your house. Your children can help
you purge items from your current home.
To encourage them to clear out their childhood bedrooms,
hold a family clean out day. Each grown child can focus on cleaning out his or
her old room, deciding what to do with their old belongings themselves. If your
kids aren't interested in cleaning out their stuff themselves, you can take it
upon yourself to discard it or to donate useful items to any of a number of
worthwhile local charities. Some may
actually give you a tax deductible receipt for these donations.
Some of your possessions may in fact be of interest to a
museum or library and again a tax deduction receipt may be obtainable for those
donations.
Deciding what to do with the rest of your possessions can be
difficult. To make the process easier, you might want to start with the bigger pieces.
For example, if your new home doesn't have a separate, formal dining room, you
can probably safely donate your old dining set. If the new home only has a
small living room, you can easily decide to donate your large sectional.
Things can become more complicated as the items become
smaller. You might have a accumulated a large collection of knickknacks over
the years. The best way to sort through these items is to do it quickly. Only
handle an item one time before making a decision about it. If you keep
returning to an item because you aren't sure if you want to keep it, it will
take you a long time to purge your home.
Other means of purging yourself of your extraneous
possessions is to hold a garage sale or a neighbourhood give-away day, or to
advertise your items in a local newspaper or on Kijjiji (or another on-line
site) or you can hire the services of an antique dealer or an estate
auctioneer. Finally, some items may be usable by a local church charity or by
building material re-cyclers or an organization such as Habitats for Humanity.
