You're not making one decision. You're making twelve.
Most families come to me somewhere in the middle of it. A parent has had a fall, or a diagnosis, or the visit home where you finally saw the pile of unopened mail on the counter.
By then you're expected to understand care levels, Medicaid rules, and whether the house should be sold, rented, or held, and you're expected to understand all of it at once, while working a job and probably managing a sibling who disagrees with you.
That's what this practice exists for. My job is to bring order to the sequence, connect you to the right specialists in the right order, and handle the real estate piece when the time comes.
WHERE MOST FAMILIES GET STUCK
ALMOST EVERY FAMILY I WORK WITH HITS ONE OF THESE
They pick a care setting before they understand the financial runway. Assisted living feels like the natural first step. But if the money runs out in three years and the next facility doesn't take Medicaid, you're moving a parent with dementia twice. That's exactly what happened to my father.
They sell the house first, then talk to an attorney. The order matters enormously. A conversation with an elder law attorney before the sale can change what the proceeds mean for benefits eligibility. After the sale, some of those options are gone.
They wait for a crisis to start looking at facilities. Quality memory care in Northern Virginia has a waitlist. In my experience, the good ones in Fairfax and Arlington run 12 to 18 months. The families who look early get choices. The families who look after a hospitalization take whatever is open.
They over-improve the house. A well-meaning adult child spends $100,000 renovating a 1950s McLean rambler that buyers were going to update anyway. Knowing what to fix and what to leave alone is often worth more than the renovation itself.
They try to assemble the team themselves. Five specialists, found through five separate Google searches, none of whom talk to each other, while you're doing this at night after work.
HOW WORKING TOGETHER ACTUALLY GOES
The Orientation Call
(20 minutes, no cost)
We talk through where your family actually is: your parent's health, the financial picture in broad strokes, the timeline, who else is involved in the decision, and what's already been done. I'll tell you what I think the sequence should be and what I'd do first if it were my father.
Some families leave this call with a plan they execute themselves. That's a fine outcome. There's no obligation and I don't send follow-up sales emails.
The Plan
If you want to keep going, I put the plan in writing: what needs to happen, in what order, and who needs to be involved at each stage. Most families have never seen the whole map at once, and seeing it lowers the temperature considerably.
This is also where we figure out the real question about the house: sell now, sell later, rent it, or hold it in some other structure. That answer depends on care costs, benefits planning, and tax exposure, so it's not a question I answer alone.
Preparing Your Home
When it's time, I handle getting the house ready. That means deciding what's worth doing and what isn't, coordinating the trades, and managing the practical reality that this is a home someone lived in for forty years, with the belongings, the memories, and the family dynamics that come with it.
My background is in fashion design, which sounds unrelated until you've watched someone walk through a dated house and see what it can become. I can usually get there with far less spending and far less disruption than families expect.
Building Your Team
I make the introductions, in order, to the specialists your situation actually calls for. Not all of them, only the ones you need.
You don't chase anyone down. I make the introduction, share context so you're not retelling the story five times, and stay in the loop.
The Sale
Full listing and marketing through The Davenport Group at TTR Sotheby's International Realty, with the pacing each situation requires. Sometimes that means moving fast because care costs are accruing. Sometimes it means waiting because a Medicaid application is pending. The strategy follows the plan, not the other way around.
And After
Settlement isn't the end of the transition for your family, so it isn't the end of my involvement. I’ll continue to be available for questions and, if needed, help with the next housing decision if a parent moves in with an adult child.
WHO'S ON THE TEAM
I'm a Realtor. I'm not an attorney, a financial advisor, or a benefits planner, and I'm careful not to act like one. What I am is the person who knows which of those you need, when you need them, and who's actually good.
Elder Law Attorney
Asset protection, trusts, powers of attorney, the five-year Medicaid lookback, guardianship if it comes to that.
Medicaid and Benefits Planning
Eligibility, spend-down strategy, application, and the Virginia-specific rules that catch families off guard.
Financial Advisor/CPA
Care-cost modeling, capital gains on a long-held home, coordinating the sale with the rest of the estate picture.
Senior Living Placement Specialist
Touring, comparing, and getting on the right waitlists in Fairfax, Arlington, Loudoun, etc. before you need them.
Geriatric Care Manager
Independent assessment of what level of care a parent genuinely needs, which is invaluable when siblings disagree.
Senior Move Manager
Floor-planning the new space, deciding what fits, and running the physical move with people who specialize in doing this gently.
Estate Sale and Clearout
Appraisal, sale, donation, and disposal of forty years of contents.
Trades and Preparation
Contractors, handymen, painters, cleaners, and stagers who have worked in occupied senior homes and understand the pace.
HOW I VET THEM
A large share of the families I work with are running this from California to New York, or overseas.
Help From Afar
I arrange video walkthroughs of the house and facilities, attend appointments on the family's behalf, serve as the local set of eyes between visits, coordinate so that a single trip east accomplishes six things instead of two, and schedule calls across time zones.
Some of them helped me with my father. The rest earned their place through families I've sent them. I'm screening for things credentials don't capture: whether they return calls, whether they explain things plainly, whether they talk to your parent instead of around them.
I ask every family how the introduction went, and people come off the list when the answer is bad. That's happened. It's what makes the list mean anything.
[I'm not compensated for these introductions.] And if you need something I don't have a person for, I'll say so rather than guess.
FOR ADULT CHILDREN WHO DON’T LIVE HERE