By Mary Holmes As we approach the end of 2017, we want to reflect on the year and what it meant to Integrated Move Management. First and foremost, we have met so many great people this year – clients, vendors, and referral sources. I don’t think I realized this until I got my holiday greeting card list together and it was quite long!! We have worked with a diverse range of clients – from a single mother needing help with her move, to many seniors needing help with downsizin

By Mary Holmes It is coming up on a year since I started Integrated Move Management with a goal of helping seniors during a stressful time in their lives. Transitioning from their long time home, having to downsize, and the physicality of packing and unpacking can all be hard on a senior. It has been very rewarding so far – I have met so many great people, helped many seniors and their families, and worked with several great employees and vendors. If you want to learn a li

By Mary Holmes When I started Integrated Move Management, I knew I would enjoy helping clients during a stressful time in their lives. Moving is ranked among the highest situational stressors. This type of transition typically is even more stressful and emotional for seniors moving from their long time family home. There have been many great and rewarding moments working with our clients. Here are just a few of my top memories: Finding a Needle in a Haystack – It is quite

By Mary Holmes I was recently asked why I don’t always use the same process and the same vendors with each one of my clients. Within the conversation, I realized that why this person was asking me this question was because they felt I would be more profitable if I created a formula and stuck with it for every client. Although this is a business for me, my primary objective is to ease the stress my clients are feeling during a very emotional and difficult time in their lives

By Mary Holmes As I have discussed on a number of occasions, downsizing is never easy. There are typically many decisions to be made at a very stressful time in a person’s life. For example, when a senior is transitioning from their life long home to a retirement community – they must decide the right time to move, the right place to move to, what to take with them, how to disperse of their remaining possessions, how to get packed up, and how to accomplish all of the above

By Mary Holmes How do you know if it is the right time to start the process of downsizing? This is a complicated question with no simple answer. First of all, it depends on why you are downsizing. For example, some people decide they want to simplify with a goal of having less “stuff” at a young age. They think they will feel lighter, happier, and a sense of freedom. Some people never downsize. When this happens, typically the adult children of the senior(s) are left to

By Mary Holmes It has been about nine months since I started Integrated Move Management. I have spent a lot of that time not only getting the word out about my business, but also educating people about the industry of professional move management. It is a relatively new field, which started in the early 2000’s and is just beginning to make inroads in Maine over the last several years. I thought a good way to explain what it means to be a professional move manager was to des

By Mary Holmes As Professional Move Managers, Integrated Move Management is involved in many different types of home transitions. The majority of the time, the homes we work in have already been sold or will be put on the market at the end of our project. What is the best way to get your home sold quickly? There are debates about whether a house should remain full of the owner’s furnishings, emptied of all items, or staged by a professional; whether the time of year a home