Searching for the Map!

Searching for the Map!

It’s been more than a decade since my younger self first wandered through the looking glass, into the subject of “downsizing” in these columns. I had just crossed the threshold of my 60th year and had no idea that “downsizing” was about to morph into a catch-all term, synonymous with an entire generation of people wrestling with questions about aging.

And little did I know that “downsizing” would become a topic du jour that I returned to many times as the scope of the great demographic shift going on in this country became more apparent and integral to subsequent discussions about market trends, low inventory levels, crazy price increases and the ways that the real estate process itself was changing.

The impetus for that first column back in 2014 was a “deja vu” moment that I kept experiencing when more of the listing appointments I went to started veering away from normal listing fare about “how much is my home worth” and “what are you going to do to market it” into more extended, heartfelt discussions about age-related concerns.

A call would come in. The person was thinking about selling a home and had a few questions. They wanted to gather more information and get recommendations on what they should do to prepare for selling down the road. They weren’t ready to sell today, just trying to get a handle on the bigger picture. All of it was great of course. How many hundreds of these visits had I had over the years?

The calls were from different folks living in different homes with different backgrounds, different jobs, different interests, different incomes, different lifestyles. And yet, the discussion that kept coming back around was always the same! What invariably started out as a real estate conversation would quickly shift to much broader concerns, more substantial goals, bigger worries, philosophical meanings and quality of life considerations.

The same conversation was happening with different people I was meeting only randomly, and after enough of those deja vu moments, I finally recognized them as a collective voice that was rising like an echo from deep within the culture. They were a silent dreaming that was seeking expression and looking around for other like-minded voices to engage with.

The caller was usually somewhere between 55 and 65 years old. They often had aging parents in their 80s or 90s and kids close to graduating college or just transitioning into the world. They were bouncing retirement issues around, when and how to quit working? They had a nascent desire to “move-down” in scope, simplify life and get rid of all the useless stuff gathering dust in their garage.

Sound familiar? Keep reading next week.