The Elmstead Homes Blog
Real Estate Help, Tips, and Honest Advice For St. Louis Buyers & Sellers
Senior Real Estate
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Downsizing
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Move-Up Buyers
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Accessible Living
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Universal Design
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Senior Real Estate | Downsizing | Move-Up Buyers | Accessible Living | Universal Design |
How to Choose a True Forever Home as a Sandwich-Generation Millennial
A couple I worked with last year were house hunting the way most people do: thinking about the next two or three years. New job, growing kids, more space. But partway through our search, it hit them: her parents were starting to slow down, his mom had just mentioned wanting to be closer to family, and suddenly this wasn't just a "next home." It might need to be the home. The one that holds the next twenty years, not just the next few.
Accessibility Details Every Home MUST Have
I'll admit something up front: I don't love the word "accessibility." It denotes disability, and most of the families I work with aren't shopping for a home because someone has a disability. They're shopping for a home that will still work for them in ten or twenty years, or one that already works for a parent navigating a season of life that asks a little more of a body than it used to.
3 Signs It's Time to Downsize
Last spring, a friend of mine called me about her mother-in-law's house in Kirkwood. Nothing had happened. No fall, no diagnosis, no emergency. She just said, "I don't know exactly why, but something feels off every time we visit."
That feeling has a name. I call it the quiet stretch before the "oh crap moment," the slow window when a home starts working a little less well for the life being lived in it, long before anything dramatic forces the issue.
Is your home a good fit for the life you’re planning?
Take The HomeFit Quiz to see how well your current home—or the one you’re considering—supports the way you want to live now and in the years ahead.
In just a few minutes, you’ll uncover potential strengths, future barriers, and the home features worth thinking about before you have to.
Hi! I’m Gretchen Kingma
I’m known around the 314 (and occasionally, the Internet) as the St. Louis REALTOR® for seniors & the sandwich generation.
Behind The Blog
I bring a background in occupational therapy, obsessive attention to detail, years of experience with real estate strategy, and maximum eldest daughter energy to everything I do — including this blog, where you’ll find the best of the best real estate tips for navigating buying and selling as the generation sandwiched between taking care of our parents and kids at the same time.
For Buyers & Sellers
For Realtors
