Retirees considering downsizing face a daunting tasking of packing up and throwing away decades worth of memories, but there is help to guide seniors through the process.
Retirement Your Way operations manager Laura Hudson, 55, said that many people were choosing to downsize, particularly older Australians who maybe struggling to connect or feel comfortable in new neighbourhoods.
“They may have lived in a street since their early marriage years, grown up with the same neighbours and eventually that starts to change, because the demographics have changed,” Ms Hudson said.
“It might be that they just cannot handle the garden anymore and they want to get rid of it.”
With statistics being published that state that that 2,422 of those surveyed who were over 55 by the Australian Housing Aspirations 26% had downsized with a further 26 per cent considering downsizing
Some of the difficulties can be overcome by offering support to retirees who might struggle with downsizing.
“For most people they’ve lived in the family home for decades…and downsizing is actually the hardest part,” Ms Hudson said.
“They’ll come and look at a village, they’ll get very excited by the facilities and the services… then they go home and they think ‘gosh how do we do this?’.”
So part of what we help with is a very gentle purchase process and some access to the apartment before their actual settlement date. So they can move in, in bits and pieces and they don’t have to do it all in one hit” Ms Hudson said.
The Oasis at Peakhurst which opened eighteen months ago was quickly filled by incoming retirees keen to downsize.
With 41 apartments and 70 residents Ms Hudson said that the building filled up fairly quick at first.
“We only [currently] have a couple of vacancies over there. We did have people buying off the plan but most retiree’s want to see a finished product.” She said
“It’s a purpose built village, in that regard it’s very good because the space, location and design was built to today’s seniors standards.”
Prospective resident for the Oasis at Peakhurst and retired teacher, Jeanette Reipmar 79 said both she and her husband Hans considered downsizing because of health reasons.
“We hadn’t thought of it until too long ago and it was really health reasons that we started to think along those lines because we could no longer maintain our four bedroom home and we needed to do something to make it easier for us. To do things now takes so much longer than it did before.”
Ms Reipmar said. Ms Reipmar said that one of their key desires was to find a more manageable residence.
“We were looking for something much smaller, a place where we felt safe and secure and a place where at a time if one of us passed on then the other one would be safe.” Voicing her concerns about retirement living.
Laura Hudson spoke of her goal for the Oasis at Peakhurst and the retirees which her company helps,
“Our philosophy is that we want to help people remain living independently in their homes.” and she hopes to continue to provide for these retirees.