How to Quickly Downsize Your Home

Whether your circumstances in life are changing the way that you live or you are looking to move to a different location because you are sick and where you’re living right now, downsizing can be the answer to your question. Sometimes the family dynamic changes. The kids move out and fly the nest, the youngest ones head off to university, and you’re left with a big old house that you’re rattling around in and trying to keep up with all the dusting.

Downsizing to a property that either doesn’t have a mortgage or has a much smaller mortgage makes a lot more sense than trying to keep that big house you’ve always had when it was filled with people. Sometimes it’s a matter of finances and affordability, and sometimes you have too much stuff that means that you need to shrink things down so that you can live a better life that doesn’t look like you’re hoarding. It’s not always easy to downsize the home, so let’s take a look at how to do it for an easier move to your newer, smaller place.

1. Don’t wait around. If you know you’re going to be moving, you’ll want to downsize. As soon as you know that that’s going to be happening, you’ll want to start researching self storage options so that you can have somewhere to store your stuff that you need rather than keep the things that you don’t. And you need to make sure that you’re getting your lists together. Moving to a new property, even downsizing to a smaller one can be a monumental task. If you’re trying to sell your house, however, you need to declutter anyway, which means that downsizing your belongings is going to be a good thing to do. You don’t have to tackle every single room and with all of your possessions to the bare minimum in one day either. You can take your time and go room to room over a series of months.
2. Consider how much space you will have in the new house. If you want to downsize appropriately, you need to know how much space that you’ll have in your new home. It’s always going to be helpful to understand the square footage as well as the shape of the rooms that you have and how much storage you have available to you. This is why it’s important to look at self storage options because in the new house you may not be able to bring everything with you, but with a self storage option you can keep the things that matter the most while you are determining what space you have.
3. Is your lifestyle changing? This is a big question to ask yourself because there are many reasons to downsize. It’s a chance to take advantage of this new moment in your life. So if you’re trying to downsize your home, think about the lifestyle that the change will bring for you. If you’re moving to a suburban or urban area, for example, and you’re not going to have easy access to the countryside by nature, then that outdoor sporting equipment that you and your family have built up over the years may need to be put into the first cull. Every situation is different, so you need to consider what your new lifestyle will look like versus all of the stuff that you have and decide what you will need and what you can let go of. There will always be items you don’t want to let go of, and that’s completely natural, but you do need to know what they are.
4. Reach out to your real estate agent. Real estate agents are fountains of knowledge. The one that you are using to help you to sell your house will be able to give you information on self storage options, on insurance options to ensure all of the belongings that you plan to store. And they’ll be able to give you an extensive list of resources for those who can help you when you need to downsize quickly too. There are companies out there that don’t just pack your stuff for you when they move it, but they will help you get it all into storage and may even provide that storage for you. They may even recommend that you hold an estate sale so that you can get rid of some of the furniture and the larger pieces so that you can downsize appropriately.
5. Inventory your belongings. It’s going to be so much easier to declutter and downsize your belongings if you have an inventory on what you have and what you don’t need anymore. So you should make sure that you start making lists. You need to sort through and separate the things that you need and the things that you think you’ll be able to bring with you to the new house. With the items that you don’t need, you can either sell them or donate them or recycle them. Then there will be the items that are too sentimental but don’t have any room in the new house, and that’s where you need a good storage unit. You probably don’t need to keep anything that you haven’t used for more than six months, so apply that logic and you’ll be able to see what you can keep and what you shouldn’t.
6. Decide if you want to downsize yourself. Downsizing to a smaller house quickly isn’t easy. However, there are companies out there that can help you to do that. The downside to hiring an estate firm, however, is that you should book their services weeks in advance, and if you have to downsize quickly, that can be a challenge. Your real estate agent should be able to advise you on companies that can help you, however. You should also make sure that you’re taking good photographs of the items that you’re selling so that people want to buy them.

Downsizing is so much easier when you have some help.