I know it's time to leave my house, but I don't feel ready. Is that normal?
Yes. Completely normal — and it doesn't go away by waiting for it to. You can be ready and not ready at the same time. Most people are. We hold both.
You raised a family in those rooms. Forty years of Thanksgivings, snow days, ordinary Tuesdays. Feeling grief about leaving isn't a sign you're making the wrong decision. It's a sign the house did its job. The people who make this move don't lose what happened there — they stop maintaining the rooms nobody's using, and they're often surprised by how much lighter the next place feels.
There's no deadline here, and nobody should hand you one. When you want to talk about what next looks like — even if it's a year away — let's just have coffee.
I wrote this answer, and I stand behind it. I'm Chris Deutsch, a Minneapolis Realtor (MN #20382264). Twenty-five years of walking these neighborhoods, checking basements, and sitting across kitchen tables from people making exactly this call. I re-check every answer and date it — this one was last verified .
If your situation is more specific than the market, that's the one worth talking through. Email me at chris@lakesarearealty.com.