Senior Living LIVE! A Caregiver’s Guide to a Joyful Season

Video Transcription

Hello, everyone, and welcome into our first webinar of twenty twenty five. My name is Melissa. Thank you so much for being with us, and please bear with me. I am a little under the weather today.

If a move is on your horizon for twenty twenty five or in the near future, this is the webinar for you, so get ready to take some notes. We know it can be, especially daunting if you are moving after years of accumulating items in a beloved long time home. Today, Maureen Longoria and Lisa Burns of Live Now Relocation are with us here to help you navigate the logistics of selling a home and that big move to follow. Maureen and, Lisa will both be available at the end of our presentation.

We always encourage you to be a part of our conversation. And the best way to do that, guys, go down to the bottom of your screen where it says q and a. Click that button there and feel free to tap out your questions at any point in time during the presentation, and I will be happy to read those to both of our ladies here today. Maureen, Lisa, so grateful that you could take the time to be with us here today on this chilly day. I think it's that way all across the country. Take it away. The webinar is all yours.

Oh, thank you, Melissa. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. Lisa and I are so looking forward to sharing some good tips to, to all of you today, as it relates to a later in life transition.

We thank you for your time.

And just a little bit about us and and why we were asked to present to you all is, Lidna relocation is a relocation management company that Lisa and I are cofounded, and built specifically to support later in life transitions.

We understand there's a lot of unique needs when it comes to a later in life transition.

What makes these unique is that they're generally Uber local. You're generally moving a shorter distance rather than across the country, but certainly if it's across the country, there's some challenges there as well. But but the other part about it and I and I would venture to guess the the hardest part about it is that generally speaking, you're going to need to downsize. And when it comes to downsizing, you're going to be having to let go of some memories. So we're gonna talk about that today and how we can make that easier for you, because this can be emotional.

And, we've got ways to make that a lot less emotional and make this move go as smooth as possible for you.

So that's a little bit about LiveNow. Lisa and I both bring over thirty years of corporate relocation experience, and we truly consider it an honor and a privilege to support these later in life transitions because until now, there hasn't been one company out there dedicated to that.

So so we are delighted to be here with you today and to share some information with you.

So let's just start here. You know, there's a lot to think about when you are considering that next step, in your life. And, you know, usually, the first thought is where am I going to go? That's where Arbor can help you.

Right? They have so many beautiful communities that offer some such amazing amenities. I often say it's like moving into a country club. So the first step in that process is gonna be where am I gonna go?

Right?

Is it, which community am I gonna go closer to my kids? Do I have some friends that I wanna move near? But the the next part of that is how am I gonna go there? How am I gonna get there?

There's a lot to think about. There's a lot of moving parts. There's a lot of logistics. And for most of us, I know I personally have been living in my home for twenty six years.

We haven't done this in a long time.

And, frankly, there has been a lot that's changed just in the past five years. And HGTV has not been our friends now, has it? With all these beautiful homes and you feel like if I put my home on the market, it has to look HGTV ready. We're here to tell you it doesn't.

But we're also here to tell you that there is help for you when it comes time to make that move and, there is support for you. And we're gonna give you some tips too about how to find that support and, vet that support to to, manage this process. So so the goal is, of course, I know you all start out wondering how is how is I how am I gonna make this happen?

And we're here to share with you there is support, and you can make that transition go very easily, and you can make that transition go very smoothly, with the right support.

Little bit about LiveNowRelocation and what qualifies us to be able to give you some of those guidances.

As I mentioned, we are a relocation management company dedicated to a later in life move. And the three pillars of our delivery model, include providing one on one support to all of our clientele. That means that everybody that we work together with has one LiveNow relocation specialist that's there to support them from the very beginning until the very end. Their job is simply to do all the heavy lifting for you and to advocate for you throughout the process, to be there to answer all the questions that you have, as it relates to that transition. They're your one point of contact and their goal is simply to make that move go as smooth as possible for you. That live now relocation specialist is dedicated to your move. The second part of our service delivery model includes introducing you to thoroughly vetted providers.

That way you have confidence when you wanna get a couple moving estimates that any of the movers that you speak to that we referred you to have already been thoroughly vetted. They're licensed. They're bonded. They're insured.

We've checked their Google reviews, their Yelp reviews. We checked Better Business Bureau. You can have a peace of mind knowing that any of the providers that we would introduce you to have been thoroughly vetted. And then the third piece of that is we've got technology to bring visibility to the process.

So let's talk a minute about vetting.

If you decide to find a mover on your own, some of the things that you wanna be looking for is go to the Better Business Bureau and type their name in. This is what we do. Right? We start there.

Do they have, any complaints on the Better Business Bureau? That's the first place to start. Then you can go in Google and, Google reviews, reviews for say it's ABC Moving ABC Moving reviews. And you can see all the reviews that have been placed into Google.

You can do the same thing in Yelp. If you just put it into a Google search, it'll come up and you'll see that Yelp reviews. Start there. Whether it be a senior move manager, a mover, a realtor, you can start there and find out, if there are any negative reviews.

A lot of movers will have a couple of reviews maybe that aren't great, but if they have an overwhelming amount of bad reviews, you that's not a mover that you wanna work with. And the second part of it is you wanna look for their accreditations.

You wanna make sure that they have a US DOT number. That's a United States Department of Transportation number. Are they an AMSA, American Moving and Storage Association member? Those are some of the affiliations you wanna look for.

But then you also wanna confirm that they're licensed to do business in your market and that they're insured, that they have a certificate of insurance. And these are things that most people wouldn't think to ask for. But as you then call the movers to maybe find out a little bit more, you can request that information. You wanna confirm that they are licensed to do business in that state and that they have insurance, and they will provide you with that information.

So these are some of the ways that you can vet them on your own. The realtors, you wanna start asking questions. Do you do this full time? You know, how many homes do you sell? We'll get into that a little bit more in a minute.

But these are some of the credentials that you wanna be looking for as you choose these providers if you're doing this on your own.

So when it comes to choosing a realtor, it's really important that you choose the right realtor. And the reason being is, real estate has become very technology driven.

And for most people, this is gonna be your largest financial asset.

Most agents, almost fifty percent last year sold zero or one homes. That is not the real estate agent what you want listing your home because, like I said, it's become very technology driven, and technology costs money. And providing professional pictures, which isn't, just a minimum bar expectation these days, costs money. So you wanna work with a realtor who is a full time realtor and hopefully one of the top producing realtors in your market because you want them to have access and have a thorough understanding of how to use these resources to best market your home. You want them to use professional photography. There's a big difference between using a professional photographer and not.

You can see that immediately. And as you know, our younger generation doesn't go in and out of open houses like we used to on the weekends and hit maybe ten of them when we looked for a home back in the day. Instead, they sit on their phone and they swipe.

And if they see a house, that they like, then they're gonna heart it, and that's one maybe they're going to actually go through. But from the most part, those pictures will determine whether or not that's a house that they're gonna actually go and visit personally.

So it's super important that the realtor that you work with invests in these resources and uses these resources and knows how to use these resources to properly market your home.

Pricing your home correctly is also really critical. So one of the things we do is we ask the realtors, and we always recommend that you talk to two realtors. We would always refer two full time top producing realtors in that given market. And the reason for that is we also ask them to fill out a comparative market analysis.

A comparative market analysis will compare your home to three other homes that have recently sold on the market and three that are like your home that are on the market today. That provides you with really great insight into what your home will sell for and how long it'll take it to sell because now you're comparing your home to the others on the market. And that's how your potential buyer is gonna determine the value of your home as well. So we always recommend have two full time top producing agents come and give you that comparative market analysis on your home. You can then take all that good information and make the best decision for yourself, but it will also help you determine what you really should be listing your home at to sell it at its maximum value. You don't wanna overprice it and you don't wanna underprice it. You wanna make sure you hit that sweet spot so that you can maximize the equity out of your home.

The other thing to keep in mind, there was a recent settlement with the National Association of Realtors, and that settlement, that, legal settlement requires that listing agents no longer put in the MLS what you would agree to pay a buyer's agent. So that has become a little bit of a tricky scenario.

We guide our clientele through that so they have a better understanding of that, what that means to them. But the bottom line is you will negotiate your listing, commission with your listing agent, and you you can determine with them if or what you would wanna pay a buyer's agent when that buyer's agent brings somebody to your home. That can also be negotiated that contract. But it's it's kinda put a monkey wrench in things for everybody, and I want you to know, that full time top producing agents can guide you through that.

And it's it's also an Uber, local thing. Every market is doing something a little bit different. And then the third thing to look for, the right realtor is, is it a good personality fit? You're gonna be working very closely with this person, and you wanna make sure that it's somebody that you enjoy working with. So those are some of the things to look for when you choose an agent.

Some of the questions you can ask is, how many years have you spent in real estate? Because you do wanna determine that they're selling enough homes that they, like I said, can provide all that guidance to you. So ask them how many years have they been in real estate and how many homes did they sell in twenty twenty four? How many did they sell in twenty twenty three?

Ask them how they'll market the home. When they come in and do that comparative market analysis for you, that's when you get a real good idea of what what are their ideas to market your home. You wanna know about that, and you want them to commit to some things that they will do to market your home. If you need help with staging.

These days, staging really just means decluttering, getting everything off the counters, making sure everything is picked up. Looks very sparse within your home to depersonalize it. That's a lot of staging, but you might have some rooms that need some other staging. Maybe it's an empty room and they can bring in some furniture, or maybe you wanna take your furniture out and you wanna bring in other furniture.

They can help you with that. So that's one of the questions you wanna ask them if that's a need of yours. Next one is, do they provide any concierge services? Maybe if you need to have a few things done to spruce up the house, maybe paint some walls, neutralize some rooms, or fix some things.

They might be able to offer you those services through local handymen that they work with, local painters and stuff. So I would ask that question.

The next thing is, does the real estate firm charge out of pocket fees? At LidNow, we negotiate any out of pocket fees out of those agreements.

So if that's something, that they charge, you wanna know about that upfront. Are they gonna charge you a cancellation fee if you cancel your contract with them? Are they gonna charge marketing fees, administrative fees? You wanna know upfront what those fees are so you're not caught by surprise when you decide to list with them, and it's in the listing agreement. And then finally, do they act as a dual agent? We highly recommend that you tell your agent that you do not want them to act as a dual agent.

What a dual agent is is they're agreeing to act, as a representative for you, who you're you are paying them, but for the buyer's agent as well, for the buyer. You don't want that. You want somebody dedicated to representing you, and you are paying them. So you don't want them to agree to represent a buyer that might come to your house and want to, put give you a contract.

So real quick, a senior move manager, I think it's it's important. When you're doing a later in life move, there's a place in this process for senior move managers. What they are is, they are companies dedicated to exactly this, helping people organize and downsize to make that move.

They can help you prepare your house for sale, to declutter it, maybe move some things out, maybe some things that are gonna go on storage, or maybe they're gonna come in and move a bunch of things out that can be repurposed, and they'll get it to a local charitable organization for you. They can create a floor plan for you of your your new space to tell you what things will fit in the new space and and determine where that furniture will go, so that you know what furniture will be going with you, maybe what things you're not gonna take with.

They can then when it comes time to move, pack those contents for you and discard anything that you're not gonna take with. Again, maybe there's some things that would go in the landfill, but most things can be repurposed. They can organize all of that for you. Keep in mind, they will do as much or as little as you ask them to do. They charge by the hour, and then they can coordinate and oversee then the actual packing and moving to the new location.

We highly recommend if you use a senior move manager, this is a great place to use them because if they'll do the packing for you and they understand the layout of your house, when they unpack you at the new location, they'll put everything away. So the next morning after you move in, you can literally get up, have your coffee, and watch the news. They can hang pictures. They will, put your kitchen in place the way you want it. They will do all of that, and they can do it all in one day for you. That is a beautiful thing. You can then feel like you're home within a day's time and not sitting amongst the CO boxes.

We highly recommend if you would like to move with let work with a senior move manager, make sure you use one that is a NASM accredited senior move manager because NASM, the National Association of Senior Move Managers, requires their members to adhere to a strict code of ethics and that are committed to maximizing the dignity and autonomy of these clients. They all work from the same contract.

And, we we work almost exclusively with NASM members for this reason. There's consistency to the service that they provide, and they do adhere to a strict code of ethics. The only time we don't work with them is if they're not in a given market that we are going to. Maybe it's a super remote market.

But we highly recommend if you want that sort of support, just look for a NASM member in your market, and they're called senior move managers. And the difference between them and working with a mover is, like I said, they'll unpack you. A mover can pack your belongings, and they'll move it to your new home. But they and for them to unpack, they just put everything on a flat surface.

That's extent of their unpacking. And that might be something that works for you. But if you do want somebody to fully unpack you so that you're settled in your new home, the senior move manager is where you wanna, focus your your energy in looking for somebody.

And then finally, think about this too when it comes to valuation coverage or moving insurance.

Basic valuation coverage, will give you the very basic of insurance.

Whereas full valuation coverage, is it will be typically included in the standard moving quote, but it also will have an additional cost associated to it For repair and replace any items that are damaged or lost or destroyed, they will repair and replace and do all that to current market value or replacement cost. That's a big deal as compared to basic valuation and always require that the valuables go under special coverage. If you have something that's very valuable, maybe it's a painting, or it's, an antique, that can be valued separately, and you can talk to your mover or your senior move manager about that. In the event there's damage, you are, covered for insurance to for replacement value on that as well.

So now I'm gonna turn it over to Lisa Burns, cofounder of LiveNowRelocation and my business partner and partner in crime to talk to you about tips and tools for downsizing.

Go ahead, Lisa.

Thank you, Maureen. And hello, everyone. Such a pleasure to be here today.

Maureen really offered such great practical information about, understanding the best ways to vet find those local providers.

I get to talk about the fun stuff. And I say fun because it's not easy. Right? When we think about the part of, okay. Now we've decided to make the move, and then we look around our home. As Melissa kinda said at the beginning, whether you've lived there for ten, twenty, thirty, forty, maybe over fifty years, there's a lot to start thinking about when we're ready to move forward.

And that can feel very overwhelming. Right? What do I do with all this stuff, treasures, collections, the things that I have over the years kept in my home? And when we think about that, many times, just even the thought of going through boxes because we may have our parents, our grandparents, loved ones, things in our home, and that can feel very daunting. So a lot of emotions can arise from that part.

When we think about making this move, here's something that I want you to consider.

We we start to justify things. Right? We need them.

But I I will challenge you to open up your kitchen drawer right now and to look at all your utensils there and see how many spatulas, spoons, things are in that drawer.

Nine times out of ten, you use the same items in that kitchen. Right? So we don't necessarily need them, or we might need them later as a thought. Right? I might need this down the road, so why get rid of it? Because if I need it, I I want it to be there. But in reality, when we think about that, we're just keeping things that maybe maybe we'll use once or twice.

And if we do need something, we don't have it, we can borrow it. Maybe it's something simple. We can pick it up. But in all honesty, I think if we really think about it, most of the things that we use every day are the things that we need, and the rest, we really don't need to hang on to anymore.

We tend to think about, well, I bought this sofa, and it was expensive, and I'm sure it was. I mean, I know we spent over four thousand on a sofa years ago, as that staple piece in our living room. But after years and years, the value is not the same. Right? So where we bought it years ago and it was high value, today, it's really not worth that. So you need to start thinking about what's the true value of things, and it's okay to donate them because chances are you'll do more for someone else than keeping it in your home.

And that kinda goes to where we think it might be worth a lot. When we think about the things in our home too, I think it's difficult to understand what has value today and what doesn't. And as Maureen mentioned, there are local organizations that can really help you through that. I'm gonna touch on one in a in a second here, but there are local, senior roof managers, companies that will do estate sales. And many of those will come in and do a free consultation with you to really understand what you have in your home. And does it make sense to do an estate sale, or really is it something that you'll be better off donating those items? And then finally, my kids' grandchildren will want them someday.

Chances are they won't, but I'm gonna share this story with you because it doesn't hurt to ask your family. So you'll see this set of china here. This was actually my grandmother's china. She gave me this china when we got married.

When I got married, I didn't register for china. She gave me her china, Then my mom gave me her China. Then my mother-in-law gave me her China. I had three sets of China.

And many of you may have several sets as well because when entertaining for the holidays, we would pull all this China out, and it's beautiful.

So when we think about China, most people don't want China today, and a lot of donations don't even need it in their donation store. But here's my story. When we were moving, I sent out an email or a text to all my nieces and nephews and said, listen. I've got grandma's china. Would anyone like this china?

No one wanted the china. But my daughter at the time was twenty three who said, you know what, mom? I'd love that china. That was the china that you put out for every holiday.

It was my great grandma's china.

I actually would like the china.

So she packed it up. She's storing it, and it's her china. And I share that story because many times, family members may want something for the sentimental reason and practical. She can use this too to entertain in the future. So it doesn't hurt to ask, but ask them once. If they don't want it, move on. You don't have to keep asking someone if they want something.

So what is the real reason we keep things? It's not the things. Right? It's the emotions. It's the stories that we told around the dinner table, all of the events, all the birthday parties, the celebrations.

That's what ties us to things, not the actual, table. Right? That's just a physical piece of wood. It's everything that happened around the table. So if we tell the stories, we can actually let go of the things.

And I think when we start to look at what are the difficult areas in our home when we wanna start making this move and downsize and really get ready to go, it's certainly the sentimental things. The things that bring us the joy, the things that we've held on to that we really love to see in our home. The family heirlooms, the collections as I mentioned. Right?

Photographs. Is this not just the biggest thing that takes up room in our home?

You probably have bins and bins of photographs. And I will share with you that there are ways you can digitize those photographs.

Really sort it out, Keep the top ones that you love, the people you know in the pictures.

Get rid of the blurry pictures that get rid of the duplicates. Get rid of this scenery that no one's in it. And just keep the key pictures that you want, and then you can have those digitized.

And there are frames today that you can actually load those pictures into and have in your home, and you see those pictures rotating on your frame. Now you can enjoy the pictures. They're not just sitting in a bin collecting dust on the bottom of your closet.

And as we talk about this, when we talk about being able to give up the things in our home, it's allowing us first we wanna tell the story about that item. Because if we share the story, now we can give up the item. And there's an app out there called Artifex, and it is spelled that way that is missing an a. That's the name of the company, Artifex, and we partner with them.

So they're a fantastic group, and it's an a technology that allows you to take the picture, tell the story. You can tell it in video, voice. You can write the story, and then you can share it with others. And we've got a quick video we wanna share with you today about it.

This bike was custom built for me. It's based on a bike that was my dad's. My dad took me into my first races. I'm always happiest when I get back on this bike. To me, the sentimental value is significantly greater than the market value.

This biscuit recipe was nearly lost. Grandma, why isn't the biscuit recipe in the recipe box? It was so insignificant to my grandma that there wasn't even a name for it, so I call them my grandma's daily biscuits. You have to have a coffee cup that is, like, old. That's your measuring tool, and you need three of those.

This was my great grandfather's book. It came to us as household furniture when I was about, five years old. Only two hundred of these books on Union and Confederate side are still in existence.

It was quarantined, and I really needed something to do. Painting is one of the things that I do to express myself. After the pandemic ends, I'm probably gonna remember a lot of the sad memories, but then I look at this painting and I remember the accomplishment.

When we show it, when we artifact it, it has the ability to continue to live beyond us.

So I I share that video and that information about artifacts, for a couple reasons. You could also do this on your phone. Right? You can tell the story in a video. You can take a picture of the item and know that both artifacts or if you do it yourself, you could then actually create a coffee table book of the items with the story if you wanna print it out or if you wanna save it digitally, and then you can share that information with others. And I think that's a really big piece of this. So so think about that as you're going through your downsizing.

You don't have to lose the memories. You just lose the stuff. And by the way, Matt Paxton, who is the expert all time expert on downsizing, wrote a book called Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff. It's a fantastic book. If you're looking for a really great informative book to read and a fun book to read, that's a great one. So I just wanted to share that as well.

I think letting go, the big thing is know your finish line. And if you're planning a move, whether it's three months, six months, two years, three years from now, what's that finish line? Because when you know what the finish line is, now you can start creating the timeline and all the different things that you wanna do in order to achieve that final move goal. And when we talk about that final move goal, what's really important is your why. Why are you doing this? Why are you making this move? So really start to think about why are we moving.

We wanna enjoy more. We wanna have more activity. We wanna see more people. We wanna not worry about the roof, the furnace, the things that can go wrong in the home. We wanna actually just move that away and enjoy at the community.

So when you know your why and you can create your milestones to get there, it makes all of this that much easier, and it keeps you moving forward along that timeline.

I put down here simplify, simplify, simplify, and I put it there three times because the more we simplify, the more room we open up for more memories, more activities, more life.

I'm gonna share too some things to think about when we're letting go letting go of things. So donation overselling. A lot of people think, do I do an estate sale as I mentioned before? Do I sell my items? I will tell you for the most part, your items are not worth what you think, and so you're almost better donating those items because there are so many people out there today that can use them.

We've seen so much going on in the United States right now with unfortunate fires and just things that happen. There's so many people out there that can use your things and would love and cherish them. Donation is a fantastic way to do it. It feels good, and we know that they're being used to their best, need.

And then here are some quick things to think about when we're decluttering. Reality versus fantasy. I don't know if any of you have a closet full of clothes that might fit someday.

Great way to kind of get rid of those. You don't need them. Let's not worry about maybe someday. If we do change our size, we can get new clothes.

You can get rid of those. Even shoes. We spend money on shoes. We love shoes.

But if they don't feel good, if they don't fit you, you can let go of those as well.

Look at your home. There are things that are really easy to start giving away today.

And another quick tip, put a box, an empty box in the trunk of your car. And throughout your day, when you see things that you really don't need anymore, you can take that item and put it in the trunk of your car. When that that box is full, close the trunk, drive to your local donation place, and they'll take it out of the car for you and unload that and put the box back in the car, and you can do it again. So start thinking about easy ways that you can start making an impact on your home today in downsizing.

And then just some quick tips before we we wrap this up. Start now. It's never too early to get started. As Maureen said, I was in my home twenty seven years, and then we did our first downsize.

And then, actually, I've done my second downsize. It's never too early to get started, and you're gonna actually enjoy it, trust me, once you start going through that process. But start small. One drawer at a time.

Open up that drawer in your kitchen. See how many spatulas you have in there, and just get rid of what you don't need. And one closet at a time. Easy to go through clothes that you're never gonna wear, donate them.

They can be used somewhere else. Set a timer. Don't spend a lot of time on it. Say twenty minutes, thirty minutes, one day.

And it's amazing when you start to do these little things every day, what an impact it'll make in your life.

Well, thank you, Lisa. That was really great advice. And and truly, Lisa has gone through this process, and so she really does speak from her own experience, which is super helpful. And I just literally said to her this morning, I envy her that she has simplified her life to the extent that she has, and I truly mean that. And you will feel the same way once you, go through this process. So, just to kind of wrap it up here, we've spent some time talking about the main components of making a later in life move and what to look for in those providers, how to get through understanding that the stuff is really about the memories and how to let go of that.

But as we said to you, Live Now Relocation is a relocation management company dedicated to making a later in life transition as easy as possible.

And that's why we offer a customized and comprehensive solution to our clientele.

Every move, every situation, every person is unique. So every every solution is going to be uniquely delivered, right, and and, offered. So as you can see, LiveNow offers a full array of services to be able to address everybody's unique needs. Well, but the key is that when we work with clientele, we provide one point of contact that's there to advocate through throughout the process for you, do all the heavy lifting to give you the information to make the best decisions for yourself as you move forward and introduce you to the right providers at the right time that you can have a peace of mind knowing have already been thoroughly vetted.

So it's about you and your needs and your timeline and your circumstances, that we put together a fully comprehensive solution, for our clientele.

And then, like I said, bringing visibility and allowing you to go into one mobile platform to access all this information. So now you're not running around your house looking for the business card or the mover or the comparative market analysis that was done by the realtor you think you wanna go with. Everything is in one place for you. And just to to kind of wrap it up, this was my favorite, inquiry that came to our website.

This gentleman said, my wife and I will be soon moving into a senior living community. We own our own home and must sell it. We moved twenty two times in the thirty years in the marine corps and five times since retiring. I'm like, I don't know what we can teach this man.

I think he's gonna teach us a few things. He said we would like assistance in making this as painless as possible. He knows that it could be painful, this process.

And then at the end of his move that we supported him with, we we handled, his move for him.

He responded to our survey that we send it after every move to ask how we did. He said in thirty three years in the marine corps, we moved twenty two times. This was by far the best and easiest move of all. And, honestly, I think it's because he had someone there that was helping him through every step of it. And like I said, introducing the providers that have been thoroughly vetted, for him to get the moving estimates and the the, realtor information and everything to make the best decisions for himself.

So I'll just end it, and then we'll open it up for questions by saying, by all means, go on our website, and you can look and see all the different articles that we have on the website. We have a ton of news and articles on there, talking about the NARS settlement that I mentioned earlier, how to vet a mover, how to vet a realtor. All of this information we talked about today, you can find articles about all of it on our website.

So now, we'd like to Melissa, it's a good time. Let's open it up for questions.

Alright. Excellent job, ladies. And we do have a couple of questions in. And, again, guys, this is this is the time.

Go down to the bottom of your screen, q and a box, type that, or click on it, and then you could type your questions out for Maureen and Lisa.

Excellent presentation, excellent tips. And, I like that you added a personal touch, not only from what you guys have done throughout your lives, but also from the comments from the people that you've been able to help. So, super appreciative of that.

Anonymous asked, please repeat the book title. So that's the first question that came in. You had the book. What was the title, guys?

It's Keep the Memories Lose the Stuff by Matt Paxton, and here's a, what the book looks like. If you just go on Amazon, you'll be able to find it. He has a new TV show coming out in in a couple of weeks here, Filthy Fortunes or something like that. I always forget the name of it. But but, anyway, his his book is Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff, and it's really a great resource as well.

Awesome. Awesome. Okay. So you got the title, and now you know where to get it. I hope that that helps, helps you out. And, looks like it's a great book. Any suggestions on how to deal with excessive paperwork?

Bridget, man, I hear you on this. It seems like, I mean, there are mountains of paperwork when you're moving and then moving out of a house and moving into a house.

Bridget asked, bills, insurance papers, financial papers, etcetera. How do we keep the clutter down, guys?

It's a great question. And, one of the the apps that we actually had on a slide that Maureen showed called Presidio. Maureen, maybe go back to that slide so they can see the actual name of it. But one thing to think about when you're making this move that I think is really important to that point is to go ahead and just take the important documents. And if you do want to download an app of something like a Presidio, which is a cloud based vault to store all your important documents, the neat thing about that too is that you can provide trigger events, or have trigger events in that app that allow family members to have access to information if needed. But you too, if you're traveling, if you're do you can access those important documents as well.

So really identifying what are the top documents. If you don't wanna use a digitized solution, you create a folder that's got all the right things. The rest of it, shred it. Right? If you don't need it, there are shredding events in your market or in your town. I guarantee you can take it to a shredder.

Honestly, that's the biggest thing when I was moving was shredding all of the things that I saved for years. So do that. Just keep the things you actually need, and so many things are digital today that you shouldn't have to keep so much of it.

Sure.

I'll just add to that. We have negotiated lower rates with Presidio for our clientele. If you go on our website, you will see, our strategic partners. And if you click the link to Presidio, they offer a discount to our clientele that you cannot get on your own. So feel free to go on our website and take advantage of that. Same thing with artifacts.

Okay. And, guys, we see the emails here. So what is the website so that our our viewers have that handy now that we're talking about it?

So it's it's just live now relocation dot com, and you can see it right down here. That's yep.

Very good. Okay.

Bridget, I hope that that answers your question. And, maybe hop on the website now and take a look that up.

Katie asks, you briefly mentioned that there are local organizations that can help you determine the value of your belongings to see if an estate sale makes sense. Can you talk a little bit about those?

Yeah. There are so many different organizations. A lot of the senior move managers, those professionals in those areas have access to the right people. If you think that you've got things of value that you wanna go ahead and have determined if it makes sense to do that.

I will also share, the Artifex app, which I meant to share when we were talking.

They actually have an option for you to take a picture of your item and submit that to the Heritage Auction House. Your the Heritage Auction House will then provide you back within a week or two what the value is for that item if you wanted to put it on auction.

So there's a couple different resources that you can use. The local senior move managers tend to have them. There are some national companies out there that also will do it. But just be careful. There's different models for state sales. Some of them take a percentage of the sale of the items.

There's different ways you can go about it. So I would just make sure you do your research, as Maureen mentioned. Google, get the reviews on those companies, and really know who you're working with before you just engage with one of those companies.

Sure. And, one thing that, you mentioned early on in the webinar, Maureen, was you know, you gotta be careful about when you sell the house, what what's the value of it? What is the true value of it? You know? So it doesn't sit on the market forever, and you're waiting, and it's been, you know, six months, and it's going on a year.

What are maybe some places that people could go to online, or where can somebody go if they're just at home and they wanna get an idea of what maybe their home is worth at this time or when they're prepared to move, where they can kinda get close to ballpark information without, like, having to leave the house?

Yeah. That's a great question, Melissa. And, you know, it's a lot of people rely on Zillow. Be careful because Zillow isn't really taking into consideration everything.

I'd say the best way to do it is just do your own research online because you can go on to any of these websites, zillow realtor dot com. There's a bunch of different websites and you can look up houses in your neighborhood that are on the market. And then you can actually like I said, the pictures are very extensive. There's so much information And you can go in.

If you think that house is similar to yours, you can go and you can look at the pictures and you can compare. Do they have an updated kitchen and you don't? You know, that makes a difference. So they've updated bathrooms and you don't.

Do they have, maybe they don't have a den and you do, a family room, or they have a beautiful back patio and you know? These are things that you can look at. So I would say the best thing you could do is go on, look up the homes that are for sale that are the same size as yours. Start there and in the same location.

You know, is their home on a busy street but yours is tucked nicely into the neighborhood? That makes a big difference too. Your home would be more valuable. So compare your homes based on what you can find on, those sites, that's a a good way to do it.

You know, you can look at Zillow, but, again, it doesn't take everything into consideration. So, really, I would just say you can sit and do your homework online and and and that way, get a good idea of what's on the market that's similar to yours and what it's priced at. But then the next best step is, like I said, have two realtors that are full time agents give you a comparative market analysis on your home so that that will give you some really great information. They truly have their fingers.

If they're full time top producing agents, they have their fingers on the pulse of the market and can, answer a lot of great questions for you and give you that information.

Every time we have a webinar and we invite professionals like yourself on here, you guys are giving great tips to our viewers that they could either use on their own or they could use to contact you and help you, and you could help them, I should say, with whatever process, we happen to be talking about or the topic, which, obviously, we're talking about moving today. How does it work with you guys? So if I'm picking up the phone right now and I call you for your help, what what's the process? How much does it cost?

You wanna grab this one, Lise? Sure.

No. You no. Go ahead. Yeah. No. We can go ahead and you can call us.

You can go online. We actually have a form you can fill out online, which allows you to pick a time that works for you for an actual call from our team.

And, honestly, what we would love to do is support you. Well, there's no cost to the family for our services.

They would only pay for whatever. You know, if they used a mover, they pay the mover directly. If they use a senior manager.

So for our services and the family, there's no cost for them to have access to our relocation specialist and really work with them throughout that entire process. As Maureen said at the beginning, our goal is to make sure this is easy and seamless as possible for all of those people making that move. So we're here to support them every way we can in that journey.

And I'll just add to that. Not not only our services at no cost, we try to save you money wherever we can. We negotiate discounts. Like I said, we negotiate out of the real estate contracts, the junk fees.

So our goal is to save you money wherever we can as well. But our website is a great resource. You can see some videos on there that talk about these things. On our website, like I said, are all those beautiful articles that can educate you.

If you have a question about something, chances are we've already addressed it in one of our articles or blogs.

There's tons of information. So it's just l I v n o w relocation dot com.

Be sure to go on, check it out.

Tons of resources, and you can just reach out to us through our website as well. Like as like Lisa said, fill out the form, say, call me Monday at ten AM, and one of our dedicated relocation specialists will call you Monday morning at ten AM.

This just keeps getting better and better.

I I know that, that's music to the ears of everybody listening. Like, this is fantastic.

And, ladies, you are fantastic. We are just so grateful that you guys could provide this information for our viewers, and, not just the viewers who are show showed up here today, which we appreciate, but those who will be watching it, for years to come on the back end. So thank you so much. A great service that you guys are providing, and we're, of course, appreciative of all the tips you've shared with everyone here today. Happy to have both of you back anytime.

Thank you so much, Melissa. Yeah. Well, if you enjoyed this webinar with Maureen and Lisa of Live Now Relocation, we've got more on our website just like this, w w w dot senior living live dot com. All of our videos are all about every aspect of senior living. They are on demand, and they are all free. Thank you so much for being a part of our conversation or for being a part of senior living life today. Have a great day, everybody.

Thank you. Bye.