Seniors selling their Phoenix home Part 1- Before the big move

Seniors selling their Phoenix home Part 1 - Before the big move

Selling a home for seniors can be a much more time-consuming and hands-on process than working with other clients for several reasons: (1) it's more difficult for them to get around, so they need extra help preparing their home, (2) they tend to have a lot of stuff that they've gathered throughout their life, and (3) there are different needs and desires in every decade for home buyers, this makes it more shocking to know what to expect for seniors if they have not sold a home in a long time.

Below is an example of an encounter with a senior-citizen I recently had. I tell you this in hopes that other seniors and family members can avoid the stress and surprise that this man experienced: 

The last few months I've been working with an elderly man who was moving after 30+ years to be closer to his kids. He's normally a very pleasant gentleman in all the years I've known him, but these last few years have been harder for him due to health challenges, so he's had some rough patches along the way. From time-to-time I'd get a call from him asking me to mail him neighborhood market comparables. He'd always say, "Don't go to a lot of trouble, though, because I'm not ready yet." 

That's okay, I realize that it's difficult to make the decision to move out of a home.

Then, three months ago he called and said, "It's definite, I'm moving out of state," and asked if I would please stop by with a market analysis.  "Wow," I thought, "He's finally ready!"

But, after taking one step inside the house, I knew he had months of work ahead of him - if not more without his family pitching in to help.  There were piles of stuff to the ceiling in almost every room that I'm sure hadn't been dusted since his wife passed away 10 years ago. In short, the house was a total mess! 

We chatted and I gave him pointers on what he needed to do to get his home prepared for sale. You can imagine how overwhelmed he felt by all that needed to be accomplished to bring in the best price possible in our current down market.  Heck, I would have been overwhelmed - and then some. Thankfully he said he had a daugher that lived in town that could help whenever she wasn't traveling for her company.

A few more months went by and he asked that I drop by again, as he had a few questions. We walked around the outside of the home and talked about what needed to be addressed and I handed him the latest comparable in his neighborhood.  He didn't like the numbers, but understood the market was down by more than 50%. He told me his moving date was the end of May. This, in my mind, was very aggressive, seeing the amount of projects that still hadn't been started. 

One month ago he called and asked me to stop by again. He had made some progress on the outside of the home, but the inside still needed massive improvement. He asked me to call him in a few weeks to go over the paperwork and perhaps send it to his daughter. I called once a week for the next few weeks but didn't hear back from him. I didn't give it a lot of thought as I figure he realized he bit off more than he could chew in such a short period of time.

Yesterday he called me in a panic. I'm leaving in a few days and we need to do the paperwork now!

What?! - was my first reaction. We had talked about giving him at least a week or so to review the contract with his daughter. This was sounding kind of mixed up - not a good thing. 

Look out for part 2 of this post to find out what happened and to learn tips on how to prevent this from happening.

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