Transition Decisions

It's one thing to talk about making this year a transition year for retirement and relocation. It's another thing to start casting the talk as decisions. Any one thing can take you to the point of making decisions. For me, it was seeing 3 realtor appointments lined up for one very busy afternoon.

The appointments in question are with realtors in our current town. Why even visit potential next towns if we aren't sure the current house can be sold? That's a new concept for us. All previous moves (into 4 houses across 30 years) were prompted by employment decisions. So, moving was a next step—not an initial step.

Our old concept also involved an important assumption: of course, our house would sell. All houses sold. We were part of the mobile society. Just as we needed to move for employment, others were doing the same. And a goodly number were coming to the place we were leaving. The longest we ever waited for a sale was 5 months. And that was the darkest house we ever had. And that's what potential buyers always said... it's just too dark. Two price drops later, it wasn't too dark.

Of course, this year is different. We make no assumptions about all houses having buyers. The Great Recession is a major reason. But there's another: our society is not so mobile anymore and that slow-down occurred long before our current economic ills. Our society is aging (thanks to us boomers) and when that happens, people just don't move around as much. So, society is less mobile and actually Tom Bold and I haven't made a cross-country move in more than 20 years.

Lucky for us, our daughter told us about HGTV. Now, of course, I knew that such a cable channel existed. (I'm not sure that Tom Bold knew but, after all, this is the man who made it to 2006 before he saw his first 10-minute Oprah segment.) I just had never tuned in to the house shows.

Let me tell you. I am now educated. I know about unsellable houses, interventions (different sort than I knew about before), getting it sold (they don't even have to explain the it because everyone knows what isn't selling), and staging. Oh, my, staging is quite the rage.

We have transformed from the mobile society to the staging society.

© 2010 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (http://www.marybold.com/, http://www.boldproductions.com/, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as professional, legal, financial, or medical advice. Or education advice. Or marital advice. Or even a tip.