In September, H. Stanley and Ingrid Judd moved to Hawaii after more than 45 years in their home on Ramona Street in Palo Alto. Through the process, H. Stanley learned that big moves for those 75 years of age and older comes with a lot of difficult decisions. But, by sharing his steps, he hopes that others can make the move less painful and without as much suffering.
Step one
Push the go button. You have to make the decision that you are going to move and sell your home. If you don’t do that, if one of you wants to do it and the other one doesn’t want to do it, you won’t get anywhere. You have to push the go button.
Step two
Evaluate your resources for when you retire. Ensure that you have enough funds that you can afford the places you want to go. Identify the place you want to go to and get that lined up first.
Step three
Have a plan. Once you determine where you want to go, then you need to put a plan in place. That plan may vary, but at least you’ll have a plan. Our plan was to bring in a team. We didn’t want to do it alone. And I think people will find it hard to do it alone. There are so many things to do, and they have to be done right. (Read more about their plan in “ Moving on.”)
Step four
Be prepared to suffer. You can’t expect this to be all fun. It’s not. It’s hard. It’s very difficult. It’s going to be stressful. But keep remembering that if you keep looking forward to your new home it will alleviate a lot of the stress. Right now, I am sitting in the living room of our new unit in Hawaii, overlooking the mountain and the clouds, and it’s a sunny-shiny day. And we know that we made the right choice. We made it because we did not want our daughter to have to engage if something happened to one of us.
Step five
Choose life. It gave us a new life. We chose this over something that might be really fancy like a cruise ship. In our case, we chose Hawaii. We love nature and camped all our lives. We feel we are not ending a life now, but starting a new life.
Aloha from H. Stanley.
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Related content:
• Moving on: An estate sale makes the Judds’ move to Hawaii seamless
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This article appeared in print in the Fall Real Estate 2015 publication.