{"id":504495,"date":"2026-10-22T18:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T18:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/504495\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T18:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T18:34:10","slug":"senior-real-estate-specialists-help-aging-homeowners-downsize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/504495\/","title":{"rendered":"Senior real estate specialists help aging homeowners downsize"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As adults age out of their homes, they are faced with the challenge of downsizing, which can be a difficult process. That&#8217;s why many are looking to senior real estate specialists for help.<\/p>\n<p>In every corner of this consignment store is a family&#8217;s story \u2014 items collected from families who needed to downsize.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Out of their beautiful home there were these enormous bookcases filled with these beautiful books,&#8221; said Rose Rugama, who owns Next Step for Downsize Living.<\/p>\n<p>According to Realtor.com, each year 1.39 million homes are vacated as older residents decide to live in a rental, move in with family members, or transition into community living. It&#8217;s a change that can be challenging and expensive.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.seniorliving.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SeniorLiving.org<\/a>, moving into an assisted living facility will cost about $75,756 per year, while those who need assisted living care at home will pay about $80,000 a year.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s why many families are seeking the help of senior real estate specialists like Rugama, who help clients deal with these changes, find them a new place to live and figure out how to pay for these expenses \u2014 which includes sorting through their belongings.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m constantly preaching that make a plan, make a plan, but often it turns into a need. The elder fell; they can&#8217;t do the stairs anymore,&#8221; Rugama said.<\/p>\n<p>One of those clients was Donna. Rosa Martinez is her daughter-in-law. She was there as Donna decided to move out of her home of more than 50 years.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But it was just pretty overwhelming of OK what are what are we gonna do? &#8221; What are you know what is she gonna take what is she gonna leave what is she gonna give,&#8221; Martinez said.<\/p>\n<p>For families like Donna&#8217;s, the volume of belongings can be daunting.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you&#8217;re on a fixed income, you don&#8217;t have a lot of extra money. But now you need to redo the roof or the windows need work, or you just need to update what&#8217;s going on inside the house,&#8221; Rugama said.<\/p>\n<p>That challenge is how the consignment shop was born. Rugama and her daughter help families sell their items as a way of making extra cash.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We started seeing so many beautiful things that we would just hold on to and say maybe we&#8217;ll sell it for the family at a pop-up,&#8221; Rugama said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We find new homes for them; we find new love for them because so many times, as an elder, you love your stuff &#8230; and you don&#8217;t want to know it&#8217;s going to go in the landfill,&#8221; Rugama said.<\/p>\n<p>The work gives clients the closure they need as they begin their journey in their new homes.<\/p>\n<p>This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As adults age out of their homes, they are faced with the challenge of downsizing, which can be&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7948,195074,15357,74,76,75,10294],"class_list":["post-504495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-consumer","tag-estate-planning","tag-financial-planning","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-senior-citizen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}