Image via Caring Transitions

As one of the fastest-aging regions in the country, Caring Transitions, a company aiming to provide essential relocation and estate services for seniors and their families, is eyeing the Central Valley as a necessary market for a new location.

As the nation’s largest provider of senior relocation and household goods resale, Caring Transitions operates more than 400 locations across the country. Specializing in assisting aging seniors downsize from their longtime homes into more manageable living situations (like senior-living facilities, apartments or even moving in with family), the company aims to take some of the stress and pressure off of families already dealing with the challenges of transitioning an aging family member.

The Central Valley, however, is one of the few regions in the country where Caring Transitions faces a challenge in service.

“We need a strong owner here because we have a lot of need for the people that need the service in the area,” said James Stapleton, vice president of development for Caring Transitions. “We just don’t have an owner close enough to be able to service them.”

Caring Transitions’ services include everything from planning and logistical assistance with family, to packing and moving seniors into their new homes. The company then returns to the previous home to carry out an in-house estate sale or an online sale using their website, CTbids.com. Items that cannot be sold are either donated or disposed of, with the ultimate goal of leaving the property in “real estate ready” condition, easing the burden faced by families.

“The whole point of our service is to leave the house in a broom-swept fashion so that a real estate agent can come in, stage it, start doing their walkthroughs and sell the house faster,” Stapleton said.

Caring Transitions has found success in Northern and Southern California, but with no resources in the Central Valley, the market remains wide open.

Stapleton said that a major hurdle for the company and its operation in the state is distance — with no local owners, prospective clients are often left waiting or overlooked.

“No owner in the San Francisco market is going to drive two-and-a-half hours to do a quote for someone that might or might not take the service,” he said.

Stapleton emphasized that, while the company is eager to expand to the Valley, it prioritizes finding the right owner to fill the gap; the company receives approximately 180 interest leads per week nationwide, but not every candidate is the right fit.

“We want to make sure that we’re setting people up for success… not just for them… but it also has to be right for us too,” Stapleton said. “In this industry, putting the wrong person in the leadership role can be even worse than not opening a facility at all.”

Caring Transitions’ services are designed to ease what is often an emotionally and physically draining process, whether the client is downsizing due to health reasons or is dealing with the belongings of a deceased relative.

Stapleton said that the importance of the service and its ability to help surviving relatives retain some semblance of normalcy during the difficult transition is one of the keys in what drives Caring Transitions to maintain empathy and understanding throughout the process.

“A need like this is something that everybody is going to experience at least once in their life,” Stapleton said. “When it comes down to someone that is going through this…it’s very reactive.”

He added that families attempting to handle similar transitions on their own spend an average of nine months fully transitioning a loved one from their once-permanent residence into their end-of-life environment — be it an assisted-living facility, family home, apartment or just closer to their loved ones.

“Something that would [take a] family nine months to do, on average, would take us a week or two,” he said. “It’s because of the processes, procedures and people we have in place.”

Stapleton said that their model sets them apart from competitors because no other national company provides the full range of services — relocation, estate sales and home clean-outs — all under one roof.

He added that assisting in relocating seniors is often more than just a simple move. With people living longer and often moving to be closer to relatives, he said the ability to “box mom up” in Florida and “unbox” her in New York is becoming more common — something that Stapleton himself went through with his grandmother-in-law on the East Coast.

“What we really do, at the end of the day, is we give the family time back,” Stapleton said.