What Does It Cost to Hire Someone to Help Your Parents Downsize Into an ADU?

By Buz Artiano, BuildX | August 2026

Watch: Downsizing a Whole House Into 900 Square Feet, Who Actually Helps You Do That?

Your parents have been in the same house for a very long time. You know that it's impossible for them to pack it up or clean it out themselves. But there's no way you can take three months off work to help them. Maybe you tried a few times over the weekend, but you guys just got stuck arguing about one box or another. A lot of times people don't even know that you can actually pay a professional to do that. The problem isn't that people don't want to pay for that service, it's that they don't know who to call or how much it's going to cost.

My name is Buz Artiano, founder of BuildX. We have built dozens of ADUs across Massachusetts, but most of our jobs have been on the South Shore and in Plymouth County. That's where there are a lot of constraints related to septic and what you can and can't build on your lot. We handle everything for you. We do the design, the permitting, and the construction from start to finish, so we see the entire process when a family decides to build an ADU. After doing a lot of these builds we've noticed a pattern. The ADU gets finished on schedule, but the house doesn't usually get packed up and emptied out in the time it was supposed to.

So we brought some people onto our show who do that kind of work for a living. Michelle Sullivan and Nicole McCann are the co-founders of a company called If the Shoe Fits. It's a personal assistance and life management boutique on the South Shore that launched in 2026. We asked them a couple things that don't get talked about enough. What do you charge, and what do you get for the money? They answered both questions on the record for us. Below is the rate, what it pays for, and the four questions you still have to ask before you hire anyone to walk through your parents' house.

What Does Downsizing Help Actually Cost?

The rate is $75 an hour, and that's a starting rate, it can change. Nicole McCann put that number on the record in July 2026, along with the reason it might change. A straightforward job prices at that $75/hr. What that means is things like go through the kids' closets, pull everything that no longer fits, donate it. That kind of work doesn't need to be supervised.

The more time spent with the client is what makes the price go up. Michelle Sullivan explained that organizing a closet for someone who already knows what to get rid of is one thing, but helping someone sort through forty years of collecting things that all have memories attached is a whole different thing, and it takes a lot of hours. McCann said that the price may go up for that kind of work, but as of now they are still only charging $75 an hour, because no client so far has been difficult enough for them to need to up the price. There is no special premium service to charge extra for in this type of work. There's one base rate and honesty about when and if that rate changes.

Pricing structure is the second variable. The work bills hourly or as a whole project. A defined job like clearing out a basement can be quoted at one price for the whole project. But most of the time it's an hourly rate. Some clients buy a single visit and never call back. Others buy the initial organization system and then they get a couple hours a month to make sure it stays that way.

Four more things can change the price, and none of them were settled on the record. Ask about each one before you sign anything:

• Whether dumpsters, hauling, and donation transport bill inside the hourly rate or if they are a separate charge
• Whether there is a minimum number of hours to have someone come out
• Whether the travel radius covers your town, and whether you will be paying extra for travel
• Whether the company has insurance and bonding, because this work means unsupervised access to a house and everything in it

This info comes from a July 2026 conversation with a company that launched in 2026 and describes itself as being in its early stage. It is two people. Rates from a two-person company one year into business move faster than rates from a twenty-year firm, so confirm the current number with If the Shoe Fits directly before you put it in a budget.

What You Get for $75 an Hour, Step by Step

The rate is important, but you need to know exactly what it buys you. The order that Sullivan and McCann described doesn't change, and it includes the part that a lot of people want to skip.

The first meeting is not at the house, and that's on purpose. Some people won't let a stranger walk through all the rooms in their house until they've sat down with them in person at least once. McCann told us that's because a lot of this work is personal and sensitive, and someone who's been in one place for forty years has to feel some sense of trust before letting anyone in. One client met them at a Panera Bread. That initial meeting is mandatory, it's still billable time. Otherwise too many clients end up cancelling.

Here is the whole process in order. It tells you what each step is for and where your money goes.

McCann is the most upfront about expectations in the planning part. They'll tell you directly that they'll make an organization system, but when you try it you'll probably hate some of it. Then they'll do it over. One client's laundry system was messed up in two weeks by the house cleaners who just shoved every labeled part into a closet. The client sent photos of it and laughed about it. That monthly redo is in place because that sort of thing is normal, not because something went wrong.

What Makes This Different From the Cleaner You Already Hire?

A lot of people try to solve this with a house cleaner first, and McCann has seen that fail over and over. A cleaner makes the house look clean by relocating things. There is no actual volume that leaves the house. She says that basically the house gets clean, but then you can't find your keys or your sunglasses.

The thing that matters for your budget is what you are getting for your money. One service just manages and cleans what you can see on a recurring basis indefinitely. The other reduces volume rather than hiding it in a closet, then installs a method so it stays that way. McCann framed her own company against exactly that principle. They're not standard home organizers, because they're not just organizing, they are having the difficult conversations and helping to change behavior, not just how tidy the home looks. The way she put it is they can come in and get rid of everything, but if you keep bringing it back in, the problem never really gets solved.

For a family moving a parent into an ADU, that difference is the whole reason to pay for it. A house cleaner doesn't remove things or deal with the root problem. In order to move into an ADU, the belongings in the home have to shrink.

How Do You Turn an Hourly Rate Into a Real Budget?

Here's what we know from our source. There is a set rate and a certain amount of hours a job will take. But there's no way to publish a total for a full-house downsize, because every home and every client is very different, and we're not going to invent a number just because people want to know.

So run the numbers yourself as best you can. You control two parts of the equation: the hours the job will take and the rate. Ask for an estimate of how many hours it will take after they've done a walkthrough, because the walkthrough is the step that will tell them how many hours they'll need to finish the job. Then just multiply that by $75. Then add the items from earlier, because a dumpster costs money whether it's on the same invoice or not.

Our source did give us a definitive answer about the ongoing upkeep however. Two hours a month at the starting rate is $150 a month, or $1,800 a year, to keep a system from collapsing after you have already put in all the money to build it. That's the number to weigh against doing the monthly resets yourself.

Three things to bring to the walkthrough so the hour estimate will be more accurate:

• A room-by-room list of what has to be gone before moving day
• The move date, because everything works backwards from that date
• The name of where you want donations to go, if your family has a preference

When Should the Sorting Start If You Are Also Building?

We asked this question to both the founders of "If The Shoe Fits". They both told us that a full-house downsize runs three to four months with multiple visits. The timeline is usually more important than the cost.

Here is the mistake we see a lot of families make. They treat the sorting as part of moving, which means they don't start on it until the ADU is almost done. It's not a moving task, it has to do with design. What they want to keep from the house determines how much storage the ADU has to have, and storage is a series of decisions made during the design phase. You have to decide how deep you want the closets, and if there's going to be any usable space around your HVAC equipment. Because we do all the design, permitting, and construction, we know how long it takes to get permits before construction can even start, and it's long enough to finish most of a three to four month downsize. Families who start the sorting and organizing during the permitting phase will move in on time with a floor plan built for exactly what they own. Families who don't start the process until we are already framing in the ADU get a plan built for a house they don't live in anymore, and then pay someone by the hour to rush the hardest decisions of the entire project.

The second reason to start early has to do with the beginning of the build. The intake form and first meeting offsite is because you have to establish trust. A parent who's not ready to have his house walked through isn't going to get ready any faster because the framing crew is ready to start work.

Is Paid Downsizing Help Right for Every Family?

No, and we have no stake in it, so we have no reason to tell you it's a must. BuildX doesn't do or sell this kind of work. We only build the ADU. Here's our advice when asked about this specifically.

Skip the hourly help if the job is a small job like one closet and one weekend. Their business is really more for when you're dealing with an entire house. It's not necessary to pay someone by the hour for something your family can do on their own. Skip it, for now, if your parent isn't ready for someone to go through their house. The offsite first meeting is there for exactly that reason, and hours spent waiting for someone to be ready are still hours you have to pay for.

And know what you're buying. If the Shoe Fits launched in 2026 and is two people. McCann let us know that they are still in the beginning stages. Their service list is pretty long, from decluttering and closet systems through elder care coordination and end of life support. We did advise them that we were concerned it was a big range of things to take on, and that a company does better naming five things it is excellent at than a long list of things they're going to try to be good at. Have that same conversation with any vendor before you hand over a house. The great thing is that these two answered a pricing question on a podcast with no problem, which is more than most established companies in their trade will do.

Where the Downsizing Number Fits in Your ADU Budget

Treat this as a line item, not a surprise. You have a starting rate, a duration, the process in order, and four questions that turn an hourly number into a real one. That is enough to decide whether to pay for the help or run the sort inside your own family.

There are still things you'll have to decide yourself though. Like how much has to go, and by when. Neither answer comes from the downsizing company. The floor plan sets the volume and the build schedule sets the deadline.