One of the common reasons people downsize from bigger home to a smaller one is a transition or change in life status, some of those changes happen gradually and some happen all the sudden. When you want to downsize your home in Florida, Some thinks of downsizing is only a transition from bigger home to a smaller one because less people are living in the home, while this is true in some cases, but this is probably the least of importance compare to other issues a homeowner might be facing at the time of thinking about downsizing. Besides, downsizing could means a transition from current home to a nursing home or assisted living facility, or moving with other family members. How to downsize your home in Florida with the least amount of stress is key for an easy transition.
There are more serious reasons for downsizing or moving period! Like an elder homeowner who has dementia, or Alzheimer’s, the fear on being alone because other health conditions, or loneliness which leads to a different kind of mental health conditions like depression and anxiety or maybe even both, specially if one spouse passed away and he/she living in the house alone.
Regardless of the reason why someone is moving from a home they lived most of their lives in, we will uncover the things that a homeowner must do to make their transition more efficient that lead homeowners to sell their home and move. Also to provide you with tips to make downsizing in Florida an easy process with the least amount of hassle, and the least amount of emotional, mental, and physical stress. We will start first uncovering the 6 most great things about smaller houses and why downsizing in Florida to smaller house is important.
6 Great Things About Downsizing To Smaller Houses In Florida
1- Less Work To Clean The Home
One of the things we hear most often from homeowners who have decided to downsize in Florida, is how grateful they are for the low maintenance lifestyle a smaller property can offer. With fewer rooms, you will have less to dust, less to vacuum, and less space to maintain. You’ll save time, money, and energy. Why spend your money cleaning up empty rooms? When you live in a house that is the right size, you will only have to clean up after yourself, no a bunch of empty space.
2- Few Places To Accumulate Junk
When you want to downsize your home in Florida, know that right along with having less to clean is having fewer places to hide away your junk. When you have stuff everywhere, you can feel cluttered both physically and mentally. When you live in a small space, there are fewer storage options, meaning you will have to reduce the number of items you own. Minimizing the things you own and keeping them orderly can have astonishing mental health benefits. Doesn’t feel great when you have cleaned out your closet or garage?
3- Lower Utility Bills
A smaller house in Florida means less to heat and less to cool. Your electricity bill will likely be much lower than that of a large house. And if you’re using cable, you might only have two boxes instead of three. A smaller yard means less to water and fewer plants to maintain. All in all, you can count on your utility bills going down when you own a smaller house. When you look at your cost savings for the year, you could be talking about thousands of dollars!
4- Cheaper Repairs and Upgrades
When you live in a smaller house in Florida, the costs to upgrade will drop dramatically from those of a large house. It costs much less to redo a small kitchen, recarpet fewer rooms, and to replace a smaller roof. Having a smaller house can save you thousands of dollars in upgrade and repair costs when all is said and done. With less space comes less for you to have to fix, maintain, and upgrade.
If you’re looking resources on how to find reliable handymen or contractors to repair your current home or the home you’re moving to, you can visit https://www.angi.com/ This website basically is an online platform where homeowners can search for and connect with local service professionals like contractors, plumbers, and electricians by providing a directory of reviewed and rated businesses in their area, allowing users to compare quotes, read reviews, and book services directly through the website or app.
5- More Intimate
Many homeowners we meet talk about the large divide that living in a big house has placed on their family. When the kids are always off in the game room, basement, or den, it makes interacting with them much more difficult. You will find that you don’t see the members of your family very often, even if you are sharing one big roof. With a smaller house, families become closer both figuratively and literally. Living in close quarters will create a family bond that you can’t achieve with everyone so spread out. If you’re thinking to downsize your home in Florida, more intimate can be a great thing to have.
6- Cost Savings
There are numerous ways a smaller house will save you money. Aside from the utility savings, when you downsize your home in Florida, you will also likely have a lower mortgage payment, lower property tax bill, and lower insurance costs. Your ownership costs for a small house will be much less than a large house of similar condition, in the same area. With all of the money you save, you can invest, travel, or leave something behind for your grandkids. Once you make the transition into smaller living, you will be surprised at what you are able to save and wonder why you didn’t do it sooner.
The home insurance in Florida skyrocketed a few years ago due to the hurricanes and storms we have here in Florida. One of the most important steps you can take to save money on home insurance is to do wind mitigation and 4 point inspections. Also if you’re downsizing your home in Florida to an older home, make sure it has hurricane clips, if you don’t have them, hire a contractor to install them for you. This will save you a lot of money in insurance every year.
If you’re thinking about downsizing your home in Florida to a room in a nursing home, assisted living facility, moving with a family because you can’t live alone anymore, or even moving to an actual smaller house to save on the expenses and have less living space but more of living life! Then you need to prepare early this way you won’t be overwhelmed emotionally because of the sudden change, and physically because of too many things to do.
There are 8 steps to take when you want to downsize your home in Florida, whether you’re moving to a smaller house, moving to a nursing home, or moving with family. Let’s walk you though those 8 steps.
8 Tips Before You Downsize Your Home In Florida
1. Downsize Your Home In Florida Starts With a Good plan
When you want to downsize your home in Florida, starting early on can give you an advantage edge over doubts and being overwhelmed. Giving yourself enough time to sort through belongings helps you make thoughtful decisions about what to keep and what to discard. First, you need to start with the areas in the house that have less sentimental value, like the garage, or guest room. Instead of trying to handle everything at once. By breaking the process into smaller steps. You can schedule specific days to tackle specific rooms or areas around the house.
Make sure to have a clear date on when you’re moving, this way, you can schedule clearing and cleaning rooms and areas around the house accordingly. such as decluttering, organizing, and packing can also keep you on track. By spreading these tasks in the course of weeks or even months, you avoid the feeling of being rushed as the moving day gets closer. Having a written list of tasks can help tremendously in 2 ways, first you won’t forgot anything on to do list, second, you won’t lose momentum as the days and weeks go by. And this will get you one step closer to an easier transition into you new home.
2- Organize By sorting everything
Being organize can save you a ton of time. When you have a system in place by sorting everything out, you can declutter you home much faster. And this will keep you organized all through out the downsizing process. For example. You can break your belongings into 4 categories. These are the four categories you can divide your stuff. A) Hold: This is for you belongings that you want to keep. This would be your important items, like cloths you want to keep, or sentimental items that means a lot to you. B) Donation: These are the items that feels like it would be too much work to keep and to move it with you. C) Trash : This is the items that are not good for anyone to keep. D) Money: This would be the items that you could sale and pocket some money.
3- Get Help From Friends Or Family
When you want to downsize your home in Florida, it’s important to ask people who cares for you to help you out during the downsizing process. Because of two reasons, first, it’s too much work to do it alone physically, you could do it alone if you don’t have anyone or if you have to, but why? If you have friends or family members that can help you to make the process easier, then it would be the smart choice. Second, most friends and family members love to do that to help you out and to support you physically and emotionally.
4- Make Organizing Easier by Labeling Your Boxes
Labeling you boxes can make the process much faster and easier when you’re organizing your items and also when you start unpacking everything in your new home. This makes the downsizing process much easier when you pack and when you unpack. Specially when it comes to essential items. You can label your boxes by using a color coded labels and name each box to which room the items in the box belongs to.
5- Hire A moving Company
If you have a lot of stuff that it’s overwhelming to you, and you don’t have any friends or family where you live, also if you’re not in a good physical health to move your belongings, consider hiring moving professionals who can assist you with that. They’re specialized in helping people moving and they can help in declutter your home and organize everything for you. This step can certainly help when you want to downsize your home in Florida and make an easy transition.
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6- Using Self Storage
If you have some items that you’re not sure what to do with yet, you can rent a self storage temporarily until you decide. Downsizing in Florida or anywhere for that matter is a big shift in life style. And when you have a life shift whether gradually or all the sudden, then you will realize how much stuff you have. In most cases, you will have some items that you’re not sure in you want to keep or if you want to get rid of. Self storage can be a great resource to store your belongings until you decide what you want to do with them.
7- Sentimental Items Are Important
While you can’t have enough of sentimental items due tot he memories they hold and means so much to you. That can be from photos, letters, heirlooms, but having too many of them can be a clutter to your new space. You can consider giving some of them to family members who can appreciate those items. You can also create a memory box for the most moments or memories that you cherish. Last but not least, you can digitize photos and documents to reduce physical storage.
8- Choose The Right Time
It’s important to choose the right time when you want to downsize your home in Florida. You want to make sure to avoid hurricane seasons. Florida weather is unpredictable, it’s important to avoid moving during hotter months. You need to coordinate with your moving company in advance if you decide to hire one. This will allow you and the company you’re hiring to prepare for any unforeseen issues and prepare everyone to schedule you in the best season and date possible.
Now, we discussed above to do list when you decide to downsize your home in Florida. But there are things that you need avoid as well to make sure you don’t do one of the mistakes of downsizing that can cause you delays or hassle. The list below are some of the things you need to avoid.
Top 9 Mistakes to Avoid When You Downsize Your Home In Florida
1- Not Setting a Clear Financial Goals Before Downsizing
You want to set up a clear goals when you decide to downsize your home in Florida. You need to set goals financially so you can maximize your financial benefits. You need not only to save money by moving to a smaller house or with family members, or even a nursing home, you also need to minimize you debt, this way you don’t have to worry about much expenses coming out of your bank account every month. Some of the things you need to start with is paying off your debt by paying off any balances on your credit cards from the proceeds of selling your current home. Also pay off your mortgage and have the proceeds from selling your current home to either pay in full the current home and have a healthy size down payment for the new home, this way you won’t have a big mortgage payment coming out of your bank account every month.
If you’re moving with family members or moving to a nursing home, then you just pay off your debt and have the money from your proceeds serve you for years to come. This way you don’t have to worry about payments that you have to make on a monthly basis with interest that will gradually starts to take your life savings. Debts are never good if the debt doesn’t generate money for you.
2- Ignoring Any Hidden Costs
Make sure when you’re downsizing your home to smaller one, you’re not buying another home that require a lot of repairs. Handymen and contractors are not cheap. Homes that require a lot of repairs tend to have other issues that sometimes can’t be seen until you start to renovate. This is very important. Sometimes the hidden problems in the home can cost just as much as the appeared ones.
Also, if you’re moving to a nicer home make sure to identify the price for HOA and property tax, some HOA’s charge a lot of money either in a monthly basis or yearly. Specially homes near the water or even condos on the beach. This will tremendously increase the HOA fee and property taxes.
3- Not Budgeting Correctly
Having the right budget when moving is very important. When hiring a moving company make sure to get an estimate for everything they charge and what would be your total money expense with them. Also you need to find out how much it cost to have all utilities turned on at the new location. How much would it cost for a new insurance policy. Insurance premium in Florida is too high because of all the hurricanes we get here. Once you get all your expenses with moving, turning on all your utilities, and home insurance cost, set aside that total amount to pay for all of your moving expenses.
4- Holding on To Junk You Don’t Need
I think we’re all guilty of holding onto things that we’re no longer use for too long thinking that we’re one day are going to use or need that item. If you have something that you’re holding onto for 10 years or even more and you never used it for that long, then likely you’re not going to ever use that item. Holding on to stuff that likely you’re not going to use that only collecting dust, not only those items will take space, it require you to also clean them from time to time which is just more work on your hands.
Things that we bought years ago in a lot of cases become irrelevant over the years. It’s best to let go of things that don’t serve you anymore, but it might serve someone else. Try to either donate those items, or giving it to a family member that you think it will be good use to them.
5- Not Determining Your Actual Life Style Needs
Determining your life style needs in essential to have an easier life in your next chapter in life. For example, if you’re in a wheelchair, it’s important to pick a house with wheelchair access specially if the house has a crawlspace or a basement. Or if you like to exercise frequently, and you like to exercise from home, then choosing a house with a garage or a room inside the house to do so.
6- Paying for Rooms Or Extra Space You Don’t Need
When it comes to the main component of any house, it’s pretty simple, a kitchen, 2-3 bedrooms or even more for larger homes, bathrooms, living room, den, garage, etc.. If you only going to use 2 bedrooms, it would be the best for your interest to choose a house with only 2 bedrooms. Or if you’re not using your dining room, den, or an extra bedroom in you current house, then it would be best not to buy a house with rooms or space you’re not going to use.
By realizing what you’re currently using in space in your home, you will be able to determine what to buy, the size of a house you need, and not to pay for extra space that you’re not going to use.
This is an important step to downsize your home in Florida in away for you to have the right house fit for you after you finish your transition.
7- Taking All Your Furniture And Belongings With You
While your current home looks fine with all your furniture and belongings in it. The smaller house you’re moving to might look like a mess if you have too much stuff in it. Also it will cram the house with stuff you’re probably not going to use. Having too much stuff in the house is just as bad as not having enough. Besides, the current furniture might be too big for the house you’re moving to, which will make the house looks a lot smaller. Make sure to choose furniture that are suitable for your new house, or the place you’re moving to.
When you want to downsize your home in Florida. There are a lot of house buying companies that buy houses without you having the need to clean the house or repair anything before selling your home. If your property needs a lot of repairs and you can’t afford fixing your home. Consider those real estate investment companies for an easy move and even easier home sale.
8- Not Renting a storage If needed
There are a lot of items that we don’t want to let go, specially like sentimental items, photos, a seasonal cloths like winter coats, or a cloth was gifted from a close dear friends or family members. These items are important, but if you don’t have the space for them at your new home, it would be a great idea to rent a mini storage for them, and you can pick the items you need from the storage accordingly.
9- Not Creating a Downsizing schedule
When you want to downsize your home in Florida, the downsizing process doesn’t have to be a stressful process. Take it one step at a time. Even though it’s a lot of work but if can be fun. Set a timeline for yourself. Make sure to not tackle everything all at once, this can make you get overwhelmed. But by creating a moving schedule, and have a specific days to do certain things with a checklist. Also, when you start scheduling and planning way ahead of the downsizing process, it can make the moving a lot easier which will lead to less stressful process.
10- Choosing The Wrong Home
When your decided to downsize your home in Florida, the destination where you’re going is the most important thing of the whole process. Whether you’re going to a smaller house, or even a room. Where you’re going matter the most. This is the place where you’re going to live for years, or for the rest of your life. The type of home you’re choosing to move to will depends on a lot of factors, like finances, health requirements, and the type of lifestyle you’re seeking. There are a lot of websites for real estate that allow you to look for homes that can be suitable for you, like https://www.zillow.com/ and https://www.realtor.com/ Or https://www.redfin.com/
If you’re moving to a smaller house, make sure to also check the neighborhood that the house is in. Do you like the neighborhood? is it safe? How about moving to a nursing home instead of a house. What’s the rating of the nursing home you’re moving to? How good they’re in treating patients? The final destination matter the most. Make sure you choose wisely. The house, the neighborhood, the nursing home, or a room with a family.
Downsizing your home in Florida may feel like a scary prospect, but it doesn’t have to be. You can feel good about getting rid of things by donating them or passing them on to friends or family members. You will have more time with fewer chores to complete. Our team can help you through the entire process and handle all of the details if you want to downsize your home fast in Florida!
