Real Sage Advice

4 Ways a Senior Real Estate Specialist Can Save You Money

I'm honored to be a contributing author to the Gilbert Guide Website about Senior Real Estate issues. It's just one more opportunity for me to increase consumer awareness about senior housing and aging issues. This article was recently published:

At seminars, I’m often asked to talk with seniors about the process of selling a home. The most common question I get is: what do I need to do to get my home ready to sell? I usually tell the person who’s asking that I’d be glad to visit the home and make some suggestions. The response I almost always get: “Oh no! I would need to get my house in order before you came over.”

We all think we have more stuff, or a messier house, than everyone else. Despite many a real estate agent’s reassurances, seniors often start to make all sorts of changes to their homes before they invite a real estate agent over for suggestions on preparing their home for sale. Those changes are often not the right ones to help maximize the sale price of the home or help it to sell more quickly. Before you make changes to your home, invite a senior real estate agent over to talk with you about your goals for your move, and the kinds of changes you can make to your home to help you accomplish those goals.

Once the real estate agent understands what is most important to you, he or she can help you develop a list of things to do (or not do) to your home to get it ready for market. Your real estate agent is not going to use a fix-it-yourself, make-a-million-dollars-with-simple-improvements, flip-it, home-improvement cable television show as a guide. Instead, a real estate agent will guide you with real-time local information to help you make sound decisions. Working with a real estate agent early on can keep you from making unnecessary changes to your home, and save you a lot of money in the long run!

4 Ways a Senior Real Estate Specialist Can Save You Money

Let’s be honest. The point in working with any professional is to get the job done better than you can do it on your own. Sure, you could do it, but you probably don’t have unlimited time, resources and the in-depth knowledge of the industry that a professional senior real estate specialist does. Ask yourself: what can this person do for me that I can’t do on my own? Hiring a real estate agent will help you get more return on your investment. A senior real estate specialist can:

1. Help you decide what to fix. Talk with your agent about what should be fixed. In general, the rule is: if it’s broken, fix it. In today’s market you’re going to have a lot of competition to sell your home. If you have broken items you’ve just lived with (we all do!), get them fixed. Even if the rest of your home is in reasonably good repair, little things like a leaky faucet, a window that doesn’t open, and a broken garage door opener are all excuses for buyers to lower the amount they’re willing to offer. You can actually save a lot of money by making these small repairs before you sell.
2. Help you decide what to replace. Before you replace that living room carpet or those kitchen appliances, talk with a real estate agent and get suggestions on what will make your home more marketable. If the potential buyer for your home is a first time home buyer or young family, the type of flooring you put in the kitchen may be different than if you live in a luxury condominium that might appeal to a young executive. Spending a lot of money on unnecessary high-end flooring for your home may be just as costly as putting in an inexpensive floor in a luxury home. Talk with a local real estate agent about what your competition has, and how you can minimize the cost of improvements without sacrificing the marketability of your home.
3. Prevent your spending money on things that break. Getting your home ready for the market is a lot of work, and in some cases, can cost you money. Talk with your agent about a home warranty. Many of the home warranties available today cover the home owner from the date the home is listed until it is under contact with the new buyer. That means if you have a mechanical failure, you won’t be trying to figure out how to pay to get fixed while your home is on the market. Instead you can put in a claim to the home warranty and get it fixed with minimal out-of-pocket cost. A home warranty is also a nice additional selling point for your home—especially when you need to stand out from all the other homes on the market!
4. Suggest loan alternatives to buyers that will save you money. With lending guidelines getting tighter for borrowers, home buyers are using first-time home buyer programs that charge fees to the seller. For example, there are two nonprofit programs for first-time home buyers, Nehemiah and Genesis. Both offer essentially the same benefit to the buyer, but one charges the seller a $295 fee, and the other does not. Your real estate agent will help you understand these loan programs and work with the buyer’s loan officer to see if the fees can be reduced.

copyright 2008 The Gilbert Guide

Inspiration - Staying Young

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.

Aldous Huxley

Asking for Help with Aging Parents-Procrastination

The professionals I work with in senior housing and senior services often struggle with how to get their elderly clients and their families to plan ahead for health care needs and costs.

The fact is, we are working against human nature to ask people to draft wills, identify health care representatives, create trusts, and then talk about their wishes with their families. These activities imply that someday things will be different than they are today most of us are uncomfortable with change.  We procrastinate when it comes to doing things that make us uncomfortable. 

Yesterday I told you about my colleague "Sandy." She knew one day she would need to address her parent's need to move. That conversation would stir up other conversations about comfortable family dynamics. So, she procrastinated, but that day came despite her trying to put it off.

We're working against human nature...

Her willingness to reach out and ask for help resulted in her feeling vulnerable, unprofessional, and embarrassed. These feelings are a result of thinking she couldn't talk with a colleague about her personal struggles, she was the oldest daughter and so "should" have it all under control, and thinking she should have done something earlier.

I've written lots of posts about starting conversations with aging parents about moving:

• Use Research to Talk with Mom and Dad about Moving
• The Best Advice to Help Elderly Parents Move
• What do I do with the stuff?
• How do I Talk with My Parents About Moving?
• Change-One Step at a Time
• Moving Your Parents-Where to Start?
• Time to Talk About Moving Mom and Dad

When the adult child reaches out and asks for help they are often struck by emotions for which they did not expect.

• Anger-Why do I have to be the one to deal with this?
• Sadness-Aging parents declining health naturally leaves us feeling sad
• Guilt-All the "shoulds" we tell ourselves. I should have done something sooner.
• Relief-Asking for help means you don't have to do it alone.  AND finally tackling the white elephant in the room while difficult, does provide some relief.
• More Guilt-as a result of feeling some relief.
• Vulnerable-I shouldn't have to ask for help with this.
• Shame-I waited too long to ask for help, now things are harder than they would have been had I asked for help earlier.
• Stress-How will I find time to deal with all of this?
• Overwhelmed-Now during a time of crisis you find yourself needing to learn about senior housing and senior services. This is a kin to trying to learn a foreign language during a tornado.
• Confused-Our parents role has always been the one to protect us. All of a sudden, that isn't true anymore. What happened?

And that's just the first day!

There's no "right" way to deal with issues of our aging parents.  Once you get past that fear of being vulnerable and reaching out to ask for help, you'll start to see people nod their heads as you talk about struggling with your aging parents.  You'll start to hear "that's normal."

You'll start to feel less crazy, less guilty, and less alone.

Asking for Help with Aging Parents. When Someday is Today

This last week I had a conversation with a colleague about her parents. I'll call her Sandy. Sandy's mom was recently hospitalized, and her mom is the primary caretaker for her dad, who is legally blind and quite vulnerable. This is the second or third hospitalization within as many weeks and Sandy is talking with her parents about moving to a senior community.  Sandy said they would be open to the idea of moving, but they can't bring themselves to ask their son to find a new place to live. Sandy is concerned that her sibling is taking advantage of their parents.  After some brief questions I had some suggestions for her, and gave her the name and number of a geriatric care manager. As a fellow REALTOR, Sandy knows when I give out a name and number I stake my reputation on it. I wouldn't give out a referral unless I would trust them to take care of me and my aging parents.  As REALTORS we can't get any kind of referral fee or kick-backs when we make referrals to other professionals. So she also knows when I give out a name and number, it's of someone I trust.

Later the next day I received an email from Sandy thanking me for the information, and apologizing for not remaining professional. She said she wanted to tell me about a "friend" who was having these family issues so she could give the appearance of being once-removed. She was a little embarrassed about having divulged so much personal information.

I was surprised by this. I work in an environment where I'm used to consulting with other REALTORS and we often brainstorm and problem solve in groups on ways to better serve our clients. I've come to expect other agents to consult with me about their elderly clients. This is my expertise. It's what I do. So, when this agent talked with me about her aging parents and family dynamics, it was just another consultation--at least to me.

I realized to Sandy this wasn't just another professional consultation but rather an exercise in saying "I need help". She said she knew it was something she would have to do "someday". We just never think that someday is today.

Has this happened to you or someone you know?

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Inspiration - Aging Productively

No one can avoid aging, but aging productively is something else.

Katharine Graham

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