Moving from one home to another requires so many careful considerations along the way.
Not only do you need to decide whether to work with a real estate agent, you need to decide how you want to price your current home to get it sold, all while planning ahead for your future home. Your budget, which neighbourhood you want to live in, potential maintenance needs, along with how your lifestyle will be impacted are just a few of the important decisions that need to be made in the process.
Now, combine that with downsizing. Consider having to determine your ability to keep every single item in your home. For seniors especially, this can mean having to sell or give away valued furniture and family heirlooms, going through years worth of collected items, and essentially dismantling an entire life within their beloved home.
How do you prioritize those sentimental items and memories along with the necessities? This can feel incredibly overwhelming, and may ultimately lead to decision fatigue.
We have all experienced decision fatigue at some point in our lives. Picture this: You have just spent a long day at work, taking care of every task meticulously. Perhaps you’re also a parent that must coordinate multiple extra curricular activities, keeping track of more than one schedule at a time. You arrive home in the evening, and a member of your family asks what will be for dinner, and your brain quite literally shuts down. You do not want to, and simply cannot make that decision.
The Seniors Real Estate Institute (SREI) describes decision fatigue as the inability to make quality decisions when you have had to make too many in a short period of time. The brain can block the function that allows decisions to be made, regardless of whether you have more to make, or not. Tasks can start to pile up, and apathy can set in — halting the entire process of downsizing.
Making multiple significant decisions is challenging at any age, but even more so for our seniors. This means that the job of a real estate agent isn’t simply to look after the care and safety of their homes, but of their well-being as well. Fortunately, there are some things that can be done to combat decision fatigue.
1. Complete Paperwork in Increments
Spreading out signing various documents can lighten the workload to remove some stress. These do not necessarily need to be completed all at once, and taking advantage of that flexibility can make or break a downsizing process when decision fatigue is setting in.
2. Access Available Resources
If possible, encourage your clients to bring family members on board to provide support while going through sentimental items in the home. Hiring movers, packers, and cleaners can provide comfort and convenience. Looking into storage facilities may mean not having to sell or give away precious items.
3. Watch for Signs
Knowing the signs of decision fatigue and recognizing them as early as possible can make all the difference in cultivating a smooth downsizing process. Some of these signs include, but are not limited to procrastination, impulsivity, avoidance, indecision, irritability and/or anxiety.
4. Encourage and Celebrate
Sometimes making the tiniest decision can feel like a big win, so celebrate that! If your clients feel encouraged and empowered as they make the smaller decisions, they will have an easier time tackling the larger ones.
The care and safety of our seniors as they downsize is of the utmost importance. Having a Master Accredited Senior Agent (M-ASA) like myself involved ensures a smooth process where nothing gets overlooked.
Thank you to the Senior Real Estate Institute for providing some of the valuable information I’ve included in this blog post.