When it comes to downsizing, Harvard lacks affordable, one-level, manageably sized residences. For families who end up needing to simplify, often the only option is to move away.
It’s one of the reasons local business owner Marie LeBlanc, who specializes in transition planning, encourages seniors to plan ahead. “There is so little to choose from locally, any lack of planning comes back to bite them,” she says. “Nice places have substantial wait lists. When there’s a crisis or medical issue and it finally comes time to downsize and they need to make this decision, they have limited options.”
1,400 square feet
On Monday, Jan. 12, the Council on Aging hosted a standing-room-only presentation designed to facilitate just this kind of transition planning. Speaker Deb Kotlarz, a certified senior real estate specialist with Keller Williams Realty in Concord, offered a two-hour “Thinking of Downsizing?” presentation to the crowd of 31 people in the packed dining room at Hildreth House. Kotlarz, who has worked with sellers for 13 years and helped her own mother downsize and sell their family home, is both personally and professionally familiar with the challenges families face when it is time to downsize. She was joined by Martha Encina, the senior designer at International Staging, a local business that assists sellers with making aesthetic updates to their homes as they prepare to sell.
There are many reasons a seller may wish to downsize. Some are looking to lower their taxes or reduce landscaping and maintenance costs, while others want to reduce the number of square feet they have to care for. Still others want to relocate to a home that has single-floor living or is located close to children and grandchildren. Attendee Vicki Burns came to Kotlarz’s presentation because she and her husband are planning to sell their home after purchasing a 1,400-square-foot condo in New Hampshire near family members, a move she is excited about. “I love the 1,400! I can’t wait until it is full time. So small, so easy. The only thing I miss is the laundry room,” she said.
No knickknacks, please
A condo or smaller home may be easier to manage, but making the transition to the smaller space can be difficult. Detaching from emotions and starting the process of packing and purging family mementos can be quite challenging, but it is necessary for sellers to “create an environment buyers want to step into. [The old adage of] less is more has never been truer,” said Kotlarz. “Buyers today don’t want to see my collection of Hummels. Sorting through memorabilia is the hardest part for many people.”
According to Kotlarz, more than half of today’s homebuyers were born in 1965 or later, placing them in Generation X or the Millennial generation. This target audience wants minimalist style with clean open spaces, fewer pieces of furniture, and no knickknacks on surfaces. These buyers also want updated systems, especially heating, septic, roof, and windows.
“Too many projects is the kiss of death,” said Kotlarz. But even updated homes may turn away potential buyers if the spaces are overly personalized. “We want buyers looking at your home, not at your stuff,” she explained to a room full of nodding heads.
When asked if it was necessary to update homes to attract less-demanding, middle-income, or first-time home buyers, Kotlarz emphatically said yes. “First-time buyers have equally grand expectations” about the properties they buy, and they are equally project-averse. But, she continued, there’s no one right answer: “We all have physical, financial, time, and emotional constraints.” The key is to identify updates and staging recommendations for your unique situation and create a plan that works for your family. “Never undertake improvements without [expecting a] positive return on investment,” she declared.
To effectively estimate which projects and types of staging will entice potential buyers, Kotlarz said, sellers have to know what’s on the buyers’ minds. Common deal-breakers include moisture such as leaks or mold, major system failures, structural damage, pests, surprises, and misinformation. Kotlarz always recommends that sellers have a pre-listing inspection so they can anticipate areas of concern and prioritize improvements.
Beyond structural concerns, many buyers have preferences that can drive what a seller decides to update. Buyers are drawn to wood floors, granite counters, painted walls instead of wallpaper, energy-efficient appliances that match one another, and bright rooms. Clutter should be removed because it can signal that the seller hasn’t carefully maintained the house. In terms of color, neutral palates are preferred. “Gray is the new beige,” Kotlarz asserted with a smile. “We call it greige.”
Martha Encina shared photos of homes that had been transformed by staging, a process that can result in multiple offers on a single property. As the audience appreciated her before-and-after photos, she reminded them, “Nobody lives the way you want to sell a house. Selling is a different game.”
Decluttering
After the presentation was over, Encina and Kotlarz handed out business cards as people waited to ask them questions. One attendee said he had come purely out of “curiosity” and hypothesized that others came because “people in Harvard like to be educated, and we are long-term planners.” But others said they could relate to the category of people who were getting ready to sell their home and in the process get rid of a lot of stuff. One couple wished the presentation had spent more time addressing the specifics of decluttering, and especially what local options people have for selling, donating, and recycling their unwanted possessions. Peter and June Warren of Lancaster County Road summed up these thoughts with a concerned tone. “What do we do with all this stuff? After we find out what the kids want, what then do we do with all the stuff?”
A quick survey of attendees after the presentation revealed that many who planned on selling their homes did expect to have to move away from Harvard. According to the Council on Aging, a quarter of the town’s population is currently over the age of 60, which is the primary age group considering this kind of move. Council on Aging Director Debbie Thompson noted that there is a lot of local interest in the topic of decluttering and downsizing among the senior population. She gestured around the full room and to the overflowing parking lot as evidence, and smiled. “We wish we had more space for these kinds of programs. Not even the [wet] weather kept the number of people down today.”
