My regular readers will have noticed that I've been incommunicado for the past few months. In fact, since May 31st, when I posted an update, I've been busy with moving. My apologies for the long dry spell but moving is serious work.
There comes a time in a family's journey through life when the kids have moved out, the old house becomes too big and difficult to keep up and it's time to downsize. What a job it turns out to be. For our family, at least, it was a job sorting, selling, donating, etc., seemingly, the accumulation of a lifetime.
My wife and I have been married for almost 53 years. The first few years we traveled light but after the boys arrived, things began to accumulate.
After several years of threatening to move from the big old house that we've owned for the past 42 years, we finally took the plunge and just did it. We decided to downsize and move to a condo. For those of you contemplating a similar decision, I thought I'd discuss some of the potholes in the road moving away from a large old house and squeezing your things into a condo.
Most sensible people would have found a new home before moving out of the old but we decided to do both at once so it was extra hectic.
Soon after the decision was made, we started the trips to Goodwill. All the obvious surplus and unwanted things were loaded into my pickup and transported out of our lives. After several trips, the people at Goodwill would come running when I pulled in, anxious to help unload the latest batch of goodies.
Next, we selected a realtor, decided where we wanted to find our condo and started looking in that direction. Meanwhile, we spent days sorting goods and packing moving boxes. As closets and cubbyholes were emptied we remarked on things that hadn’t seen daylight in years. It’s amazing how much stuff can accumulate because, “It’s still good,” or “We might need that.”
We hit some rough patches along the way when we found things that evoked strong memories of our younger married days and when our boys were living at home. I’m sure you all have such memories. We’ll always have the memories but moving to a smaller home requires hard decisions about shedding some of the things that trigger of those memories.
In a way, we were fortunate that we wanted to get our place
listed before the prime buying season ran out. Even though those memory
triggers kept popping up we had to press on with little time for reveries of
times past.
We were fortunate to find a good realtor, referred by a friend, who turned
out to be a trusted advisor as we made decisions along the way. Our realtor,
Charlie, quickly sensed what we were looking for in our new place and sifted
through the listings, showing us only those that would satisfy our desires.
Along the way he helped us decide what to leave in the old house for staging
and made recommendations for minor repairs and touch up to improve eye appeal.
As boxes piled up we decided to put some of the less needed
things into storage until we finished packing and sorting. We ordered a
portable storage box from one of the several vendors who specialize in such
things. The box was delivered to our driveway and I started loading boxes and a
few small pieces of furniture into the 8’ long x 5’ wide x 7½’ high box. It
doesn’t sound very big but 300 cubic feet of space holds a lot of boxes.
I like the standard small boxes because they are easy to
carry and don’t weigh too much. Those boxes measure 1.5 cubic feet so it
would have taken 200 of them to fill the portable container. We packed it full
and sent it off to storage and still had many things that we needed access to
or wanted when we first moved into the condo.
About this time (end of July) we found a condo we liked in
Edmonds, a small city a few miles north of Seattle with a population of a
little over 40k people. I mention this condo because it turned out to be a good
example of reviewing all the documents that Washington State law requires be
furnished to prospective condo buyers. In our case, a close reading of the documents
that came with the resale certificate revealed several problems with the
structure off the building and the makeup and continuity of the HOA (home owners’
association) members. We cancelled that deal, got our earnest money back and continued
our search.
Along toward the middle of August we found another condo
that we liked. It got a clean bill of health and our offer to purchase was accepted
with a closing date around the first of October.
Meanwhile back at the old house, we had to decide if we
would show the house while we still lived there or if we would move out and leave
the house with just the staging furniture and goods. We were fortunate to have temporary
living quarters available so we opted to move out. There are pros and cons for
each choice and each family must make their own decision. While we were looking
at condos we saw both options and the places where the owners had moved out
seemed to show better than those that looked too lived in.
Having made the decision to move out, we renewed our push to get things sorted, packed and moved to our temporary place.
Finally, the day after Labor Day our listing went live. The moving out stress lessened but now we were nervously awaiting offers.
Toward the end of the week we received a full-price offer and accepted it. The inspection check list was manageable so we will be closing toward the end of October.
Now we deal with the final part of the move. Once it closes and we (Ikuko) is satisfied with the state of the condo I'll schedule a mover to pick up the goods and furniture left in the old place, pick up the many boxes and some furniture from our temporary quarters and deliver the works to the new condo. We'll wait until to get that part settled before we order the portable box delivered.
Lessons learned from our move that might apply to you or someone you know:
1. Pick a good realtor. We felt confident that Charlie was doing the right thing and didn't need to second guess him.
2. Read the fine print in the disclosure form (for houses) or resale certificate (for condos) to make sure you catch potential headaches before instead of after the sale.
3. Try to plan further ahead than we did. If possible, eliminate a lot of extra stress by handing things one at a time instead of buying and selling at the same time.
4. We sorted and disposed of some of our goods a year or two in advance but we could have done a lot more a lot earlier than we did. That would have eliminated more stress.
5. Finally, if you can, procrastinate and let the kids handle it. NO, I'm joking! That was one of the reasons we finally made the big decision. We were afraid if we waited much longer that might have been the outcome and that wouldn't be fair to our sons. Better to do it while you can and not burden them.
The post about our new VFW member, the 105 year-old veteran got me restarted posting updates. With this one I remember the satisfaction of posting entries. I promise to avoid another long dry spell.
Now, after we get settled into our new place, if I can just find time to sort through seven boxes of pictures and four boxes of fishing gear. . .
