Downsizing Seniors Find Help from Senior Move Management Companies

When faced with the task of pulling up roots and moving her family from a big midwestern city to a smaller town, Laura Schulman found it overwhelming. However, she did enjoy some of the tasks, including handling all the details of organizing and packing and setting up a new home. Nine years later, she decided to start a company that would help seniors downsize, before moving to smaller homes, apartments or assisted living facilities.

As reported in Columbus CEO’s article “Estate Planning and Retirement: How to Downsize Like a Diva,” Schulman and her team at A Moving Experience take the work and worry out of a move, so seniors can focus on the emotional challenges that come with this kind of move. When people are not at their physical best, downsizing can be extremely upsetting. It can get to the point, where many people wait until the very last minute and then panic sets in.

Her company is one of many senior move management companies that help seniors with this transition. The companies organize possessions, create a floor plan for new residences, schedule and oversee moving companies, handle any sales or donations of items that are no longer needed or wanted and even pack and unpack after the move.

What’s just as important: they provide the seniors with the emotional support needed during a very trying time. It’s not easy to be faced with the reality that they must leave their home after decades or even a lifetime. Equally upsetting: coming to terms with the limitations of aging.

Children and family members may not be as sensitive to their parent’s emotions about a move like this, or they may be equally uncomfortable. Having a non-family professional may serve as a buffer and a facilitator for everyone.

The increase in the number of these types of companies is due to the enormous number of Baby Boomers entering retirement. Most will be downsizing, as they leave one-family homes and move to smaller living spaces. With 10,000 turning 65 everyday, a projected 79 million Americans will be 65 or older by 2030. Clearly, aging is a big business.

Senior moving management charges range in pricing from $40 to $120 per person nationwide, with the average price for help costing around $3,000, plus the charge of the moving company.

The money is considered well-spent by many. One family called on a senior moving company, when their mother had to leave her long-time home in one state and relocate to an independent senior living community near family members in another state. The siblings reported that they needed help from someone who would be patient and understand the process their mother was going through. The senior mover worked to make the new home layout, as close to the mother’s original house as possible.

Nonprofit organizations are also getting involved in helping seniors move, with several agencies helping seniors, who can’t afford the services of a private company.

Reference: Columbus CEO (Jan. 21, 2019) “Estate Planning and Retirement: How to Downsize Like a Diva”