Professional downsizers in demand from people in their 50, 60s ready for lifestyle change

Sandra Heath decided to sell her four-bedroom home and downsize to a unit. (Supplied: Sandra Heath)

After more than five months clearing out her four-bedroom home, one daunting problem area remained for Sandra Heath.

Her walk-in wardrobe.

Ms Heath had lived in her house in Sale, east of Melbourne, for 15 years with her late husband.

When it came time to downsize and move to a lifestyle village in the city, she turned to family for assistance.

But despite help from her children, stepchildren, their partners and grandchildren with tasks like garage sales and trips to the tip and op shop, she felt the challenge of cleaning out the wardrobe was too big.

So, she called in a professional downsizer.

“We achieved a lot in that day,” Ms Heath said.

Tips for downsizing 

Ms Heath said if you were planning to downsize, it could be useful to enlist the help of family and friends.

She recommended giving yourself as much time as possible, but also setting yourself some deadlines.

“Set yourself individual goals even while you’re working on downsizing, and do not leave it all to the last minute,” she said.

“You don’t want to go moving everything to a new place.

“You want to call [a professional downsizer] before you move and then if you have to call again, that’s not such a big task.”

Amy Revell is the owner of the Art of Decluttering, a business that offers downsizing services across Victoria and Perth.

She said it was an honour to help someone downsize after the death of a loved one.

“It’s really hard to move on from the home where you’ve had your life history with someone,” Ms Revell said.

Ms Revell said people often struggled with one particular task, like Ms Heath with the wardrobe.

“It’s just one thing that people find really hard to do on their own. So we’re often doing that with them,” she said.

“Our priority is to help coach our clients to make the decisions are the best for them, so we’re not going, ‘Oh my gosh, you can’t get rid of that’.

“We’re probably more often giving permission and saying, ‘Hey, it is okay if you need to get rid of that. You still love your husband, or you still think that your wife was the bee’s knees’.”

Grief complicates process

Ms Heath said if she had tackled the wardrobe alone, it would have caused a lot of emotional distress.

“It was great having someone that didn’t know me going through all of my things with me,” she said.

“[The downsizer] had no connection to [me or my possessions] and there were a lot of memories and things I found.

“I couldn’t have had a friend help me, or a relative, because it was a bit embarrassing.”

Ms Heath said while there were still some tears on the day with the downsizer, it was much easier to stay on track than if she were alone or with people she knew.

A job that Ms Heath said would have taken her days on her own took just five hours with the downsizer.

Changing demographics

Ms Revell said over her 10 years of owning her business, she had noticed people starting to use the service at a younger age.

She used to mostly see people near the end of their lives, but now clients are more likely to be in their 50s or 60s and looking for a lifestyle change.

“Because of that, people are wanting to be really intentional in how they downsize, so they’re wanting to set their home up for activities and hobbies and socialisation,” she said.

“They’re more inclined to engage a professional organiser so that they actually do end up with the space that they want.”

Ms Revell said while there used to be some stigma attached to getting help with downsizing or decluttering, it had become more normalised.

“We’re a generation now that’s not scared to talk about this,” she said.

Ms Revell said people were also less likely to pass furniture and possessions down to their children.

“Our inheritance is no longer the great furniture that Mum and Dad are passing down, or the books .. or the jewellery. That’s no longer the key and primary way that we’re going to remember family,” she said.

“We’ve got photos, and we’ve got stories and we’ve got mementos and so there is less impetus to actually keep that stuff because it doesn’t hold as much value anymore.”

She said more people were realising it could be easier to get rid of their things earlier in life instead of burdening their children with it.

Do you love it?

Ms Revell told ABC Victoria Statewide Mornings it was common for people to have accumulated a lifetime of things, especially if they had been in their house for a long time, and had children and grandchildren.

“The first question I always ask my clients is, ‘Why are we downsizing?’. Sometimes it’s financial, sometimes it’s lifestyle, sometimes it’s to move closer to family,” she said.

“Once you know the why, and where you’re moving, you can determine what this new season of life going to be like.”

So, someone moving into a small unit would most likely no longer need a 20-person dinner set, while someone moving from a coastal area may no longer need their fishing rods.

“The questions that I often use in my team are: do you need it? Do you love it? And do you use it?” she said.

“It’s not that you need to tick all three boxes, but it’s a great filter to put things through.”

She said downsizing was not about giving up everything but thinking realistically about what your new life would look like and what you could prioritise.

Ms Revell said people should understand their value was not determined by their possessions.

“We can sometimes get sucked into that consumerist mindset of the more stuff I have, the more successful, the more valuable, the more popular I might be,” she said.

“The value that they bring to their family and friends, their community and who they are is so much more [valuable than] their possessions.”