5 Key Tips for Downsizing in Kingston Ontario

The thought of downsizing can be a daunting one, particularly when you don’t know where to start. At Gordon’s we’ve been helping clients in the Kingston area downsize for over 25 years and we have managing the process in a stress-reduced way down to a science. We help clients: plan where to move, what to move, manage the packing, moving and unpacking for them, and help them handle disposal of any remaining contents they can’t take with them, preparing their property for sale, and finally listing and selling their property. Over the years, we’ve learned that the following five tips are key for navigating the downsizing process with ease.

1. Know where you’re going > Before making big choices around what to keep and what to clear, decide on where your next home will be and make choices that will be most useful and functional for that new Gardiner’s Rd. apartment or Princess St. retirement community suite. New builds like Kingsbridge Retirement Community, Westside Stories and The Westin will have more availability than the otherwise 0.06% vacancy rate for Kingston apartments in general.
2. Know your limitations > Downsizing should be the next right adjustment in your life and one important piece is looking after your health. The last thing you want to do is to compromise your health in your efforts to get to a healthier place. Your goal should be to make it as smooth and as easy a transition as possible. If that means hiring partners to help you with the “heavy lifting” then do it.
3. Live YOUR best life > Live your goals rather than someone else’s. When your friends and family hear you are downsizing, you may receive lots of helpful suggestions. Innocently or otherwise, some of that input is bound to be biased toward what others think is right for you. It’s OK to hear what others think but keep your eye on what you know to be in your own best interest. We can live a long time, and a downsize may take place in advance of 20 or 30 more healthy happy years. Don’t be pushed into someone else’s view of happiness for you.
4. Don’t fill the landfill > There’s lots of talk about used goods not being of significant monetary value and that is true. On the other hand, the extra things that most people have are still useful to someone and the easiest path to get things into the hands of those who can use them (when you have a volume of items to move on) is an online auction from your home, typically done after you have moved out, but before you turn the property over to the new owner.
5. Don’t worry > Stress can be a silent killer that erodes your health in a number of ways if it’s not effectively managed. Most of what drives stress is the unknown and there are ways of separating the unknown from the known, and things you can control from things you cannot. Getting some clarity, perhaps with the help of an expert, will help you see the downsize process through with less stress than you anticipated.

Contact us today for a free no obligation consultation, to see how we could help you, a friend, or loved one with an upcoming downsize project.