Senior relocation goes extra mile

Sometimes, it takes a village to move Mom and Dad.

For seniors, relocating to a new home can be incredibly complex. For one thing, if they've lived in the same place for decades, the prospect of sorting out a lifetime of possessions can be overwhelming for them and their grown children. For another, coping with changed routines and environments can generate an avalanche of emotion.

Enter the "senior move manager," a profession that has sprung up in the past decade to provide soup-to-nuts services intended to get the senior from Home "A" to Home "B" with minimal disruption.

Move managers say demand for their specialty is growing both because the enormous baby boom generation is aging and because we live in an era where it's not unusual for adult offspring to live far from their parents.

"I'm the in-town daughter," explains Nan Hayes, who runs Right-Sized Living in Clarendon Hills, Ill., which specializes in organizing senior relocations. She says many senior clients have children in the so-called "sandwich generation" who not only may be living several states away, but also are limited by obligations to their own children and to demanding careers.

In addition to her relocation company, Hayes also has helped to develop a credentialing procedure for the various professions -- real estate agents, home stagers, movers, appraisers, estate-sale companies, contractors and others -- who may be tapped by the move manager to sort, pack, transport possessions, and buy or sell properties on behalf of seniors.

MoveSeniors.com awards the Certified Relocation and Transition Specialist (CRTS) designation to professionals who have had training in basic medical, health and mental issues related to senior clients, as well as personal-property management, space planning, packing, sorting, organizing, downsizing and preparing homes for sale, she said. About 600 providers in the United States and Canada have the credential, she said.

Some families may need more help from senior specialists than others, she said.

"It's generally a menu of services," she said. "We can go in and do an assessment-and-planning piece that the kids may go ahead and execute themselves. ...CONTINUED

All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, in part or in whole, without written permission of Inman News. Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright law.