Have you downsized?

We downsized a couple of years ago. If we were going to do it now we probably wouldn't. We'd wait it out a bit to see when interest rates would drop.

Now, stuff......I highly, highly recommend starting to get rid of whatever. That will help a lot when you do move. I had done a bit before we made our final decision, but not enough.

We arent looking to downsize per se. Our current home is 1450 sq ft. We are looking to switch to a ranch at some point in the future.

Start downsizing your stuff now, the wait for interest rates to go down if you're not paying cash. That's the worst part.

We bought the home we were going to retire in when DH decided to retire. He didn't. Three years later, he finally decided to retire and they offered him a job in Hong Kong so we were there for two years. In the end, we retired with a house containing 25 years' worth of our stuff, kids' stuff, MIL stuff, all our stuff from our place in HK, and a fully furnished house in Florida. I played "Keep-Giveaway-Throwaway" every day for a year.

I think the financial analysis of whether it makes sense to downsize from a larger house to a smaller one is only one part of the downsizing picture. It may not make good financial sense from the real estate transaction standpoint, though if you aren't going to need a mortgage, that does change things a bit, in that you won't have to give up a potentially lower interest-rate mortgage for a potentially higher one. So that is one factor.

Larger things at play in your overall decision focus more on lifestyle and future needs. For example: Do you want to move because your current house has no downstairs bedrooms and you want to age in a house with at least one downstairs bedroom and full bathroom? That's a legitimate question. Another example: Do you need to climb stairs to get into or out of your current house? That's fine now, but in the future it might pose an issue that could cause you to have to leave a home that otherwise suits you just fine. What about bedrooms for adult children (and their children) to return to? Is that a factor? A separate area for children down the road, adult or grands? That should probably not be a huge factor if you expect only occasional visits--but it's a factor all the same.

What about property maintenance? Is your current home a bit much in that regard, where if you move to a smaller, all-one-level home, things can be reached and the yard does not require as much upkeep? Or maybe it's your dream to cultivate and tend an outstanding garden as you grow older, but your current property would not support that.

Because my mother lived with us for almost 25 years, I was able to get a front-row seat and participate in these kinds of decisions for my mom. There came a point, and it was with this current house, where we made the decision for ourselves that in the future, any home we bought would need a ground-floor bedroom and bathroom suite that we could live in if something happened to affect our mobility. Our current house definitely provides that, and our bedroom is on the ground floor. We also require a solution for ingress/egress that avoids steps. Our current house has two sets of stairs to enter from the front, but we created a back entrance solution that avoids that. We don't use it, but it's ready if we ever need it, or if someone who visits us needs it.

Then there's the lifestyle thing. For me, once my children graduated from high school and college, I really did not feel we "belonged" in the suburbs. I grew up in suburbs, raised my family in them, nothing wrong with them at all. But for me, I didn't want to live the rest of my life in a traditional suburb. No interest in that. So that left basically two options: City or country. Country is okay, a good option, but city is what we decided on. We bought a 125-year-old house in a historic district near downtown Knoxville. It's definitely a neighborhood, but it's a city neighborhood. Best of both worlds. Nice and quirky, a good mix of rehabbed glory and some opportunities for improvement. I like that kind of energy.

So in terms of your decision, I really suggest you consider it with an eye that though you might not want your next home to be your "last" home, sometimes things turn out differently than we plan and it's a good idea to have the basics of what you need to age in place past a certain life stage (my personal gauge is maybe mid to late forties or maybe fifties).

The financial formula for your decision is something you should be able to calculate pretty easily in terms of real estate values and what you will save in monthly costs being in a smaller home. I really think the bigger issue is the rest of the picture, though. Good luck deciding. It sounds like you are in a nice position to do that. Good for you!

We upsized 13 years ago and only one of our three is left at home. We built new, and have added value as the years have gone by (deck, fence, front landscaping, quartz counters) and have plans to re-carpet the bedrooms and then hardwood our stairs and upstairs hallway.

NO plans to sell and downsize any time soon.

As well, my commercial kitchen for my cake business is in the basement and u til I hang up my piping bag, it makes no sense to move.

Last March we sold our 3000 sq ft house for a 900 sq ft condo. However, that was with only the first floor of the condo finished. Basement was just studded when we bought the condo. We had it finished over the summer so now it’s approx 2000 sq ft.

We had been empty nesters for about 3 years and definitely did not need all the space in the house. But we were both about 20 minutes from work so it wasn’t a huge concern. When my DH got a new job in fall ‘21, it put him at about a 55 minute commute. That’s what sparked our interest in selling. We were a little Leary of selling due to the crazy housing market and the possibility of not finding something else right away. But we have a cottage nearby that we could use as fall-back housing if we had to be out of the house before we found something. But the timing all worked out and got possession of the condo about 3 weeks before we had to be out of the house (we were able to negotiate keeping the house (rent-free)
for 30 days after close.

Pam

Unfortunately no, I wanted to, I tried to, but smaller homes were the hit item when I was looking. So I ended up getting a house bigger than I needed but for the same price as the smaller ones. Weird ass market last year.

We never really upsized. We built a 1450 SF ranch style house before our 2 DDs were born. (3 bedroom, 2 bath). Eventually finished most of the basement and added another bath down there so I’m not really sure what our SF is now. Our DDs are grown but still living at home and this place feels too small for the 4 of us. But they should both be moving out within the next year and we’ve been working on updates to our home so we will not be going anywhere.

We moved to our 2 bedroom, 1-1/2 bath lake cottage and added a huge addition. We use the original first floor bedroom and bath. Our addition was a huge garage and workshop for my husband but we included a big party kitchen/great room and 3 upstairs bedrooms and a full bathroom for our girls. They come with their boyfriends and invite friends to visit fairly often.
This gives us the easy first floor access we may need someday but also provided a place that everyone can enjoy. We hope it is filled with grandchildren someday but so far it’s just been cats!

My kids are still in middle/high school but it is something we have thought about. We upsized 11 yrs ago by gutting and adding a second story to our house and are at almost 3k sft. But we still have the original owners suite and an additional bedroom downstairs plus the original guest bath. So we could easily live only on the first level. We didn't remodel the two original baths but the desperately need it now and we will do them with accessibility in mind. We love our home, especially since DH designed the remodel but we will see where our kids settle before we decide to stay here permanently. We'd both love some kind of view if we did move.

We downsized a few years ago when our youngest went to college. Our taxes and utilities were getting high, and we did not need all that space. I honestly did not think any of the kids would come back, but they did.

We downsized, but after a few years I just didn't like where we were living, so we then mid-sized. It worked out well because we had 4 additional adults living here for 2+ years of Covid.

Now we have an empty nest again, and it is just about perfect for us. Except:
- Entertaining anyone in addition to our immediate family is a very tight squeeze.
- Stairs are getting hard on my husband. Our next house will definitely be a ranch.

I think we have one more move left in us, and we will choose a ranch as close to our kids as possible.

We downsized when our youngest was a senior in HS from the suburbs to the city. We had always lived in the suburbs with an HOA.

The house was 100 years old and had 2 total closets that were tiny. I had purged for months prior to moving but we still had a lot of stuff.
Also the rooms were tiny so all of our furniture was too big.

I could touch the house on one side from the dining room window. Driveway was on the other side so more space.
Garage was detached which was an adjustment.
None of our neighbors ever used their driveway or garages for their cars so our street was full of cars.
We were walking distance to the park,library, restaurants and shops. I took full advantage of that. My dh not so much.
All my friends were still in the suburbs so I was always out there.

City services were not at the level of the suburbs. Never plowed our street. No leaf pick up. Trash & recycling removal was unreliable at times and very limited.
My street was an anomaly. I could walk anywhere else in the neighborhood and people were just so friendly & nice. All ages.

Property taxes were less but income tax was more.

There was no room for entertaining though. My kids wanted our house to be the place for holidays & parties. They live in apartments. But it wasn’t practical.

Lots of mature trees. I fenced in my back yard and made my own little haven. Which was a plus.

We sold that house this spring and are building a ranch that is the triple the size with big open areas and walk in closets. It’s also back in the suburbs. We don’t mind paying for school levies.

we aren't moving as the taxes would increase if we went to any other house.. but we spent 40 yrs in a 1600 sq ft house. we lived small with three kids and one of them still lives with us (disabled)..

we are about to do a whole house renovation to update everything and to add a bedroom to the basement. so it will be good for another 30 yrs.

I will be retiring in about 15 months (if all goes as planned), but I think we will stay in the same house. In the past 6 years, I have been “downsizing in place” by going through a drawer, shelf, and closet at a time. I have donated, had a garage sale, did 1 flea market, and sold the rest of nicer things through an online auction. We donated an entire trailer worth of stuff to a thrift store that recently opened. Since we are working mostly from home, I donated half of my work clothes. I am no longer officiating track & field so I sold or donated (to other officials) all those uniforms, equipment, starting device, blanks.

I will go through stuff again, doing the same thing (drawer, shelf, tote, closet at a time again.