You may associate estate sales only with the liquidation of an estate after a loved one passes. However, a growing trend utilizes estate sales to downsize dramatically, as increasingly younger Americans trade the traditional large family homes and accumulated belongings for condos, tiny houses, and even recreational vehicles.
When you downsize during your life, you manage your own estate and reap many financial and social benefits. Downsizing requires some important groundwork to be successful. Create an action plan for downsizing following these five important steps.
Determine Your Next Move
Before you sell all your possessions, decide what your next step is. If you are not interested in or able to start from scratch, carefully determine which of your possessions you will need to take with you on the next stage of your journey. Face your new reality with a minimalist approach of practicality.
Evaluate which items you can maintain and which will fit in with your new lifestyle.
Manage Your Treasures
Once you have determined what items you need and your new space constraints, decide which items you plan to keep personally or in the family due to their inherent monetary or sentimental value. Heirlooms, photographs, beloved souvenirs, and specialty collections should be separated.
The popular Marie Kondo Method suggests you evaluate items based on their ability to “spark joy.” Reflect on the practical or sentimental necessity of each item when sorting. Remember, the emotional value of an object to you can be more important than what its market value reflects.
Consider Your Finances
When you sort your valuables, consider whether you need the money from your estate sale to finance your next adventure. Or, you may desire the ability to personally gift your assets to loved ones and favorite charities during your lifetime. Whatever your motivation, weigh keeping high-value items against the freedom and leverage you can achieve by trading assets for cash.
You may want to determine a set value you hope to achieve from your estate sale based on these goals and prepare to discuss that figure with your estate sale manager.
Communicate With Family
Your estate is your estate. These decisions to keep or sell are ultimately yours to make. However, families are traditionally involved and may even carry some expectations concerning your estate’s content and future ownership. Possibly, you have children who quietly admire particular items, or you have parents who would prefer certain items remain in the family rather than be sold.
Be upfront, but sensitive, and include appropriate family members in your plans.
One of the emotional and social benefits of managing your own estate sale is preemptively avoiding the hurt, competition, and possible emotional trauma that can arise from managing a loved one’s estate. With compassionate yet practical planning, you can avoid this common challenge for your family.
Arrange Your Sale
When you have considered the above steps and are ready to arrange a sale, contact an estate sale company. Although you can sell through a variety of internet and direct sales arenas, there are several key benefits to having the entire process seamlessly managed.
An estate sale company can use their expertise to properly valuate your possessions. Often, the expert judgments alone are worth the sales commission.
Estate sales companies will manage the entire experience from marketing to staging, from selling to collecting. Focus on your goals and plans while your estate is fully managed.
Do you feel inspired to simplify your life? Whether you downsize to a smaller house or condominium, move into a tiny house, or trade the confines of a home for the freedom of a recreational vehicle, contact us to explore your estate sale management options.