Is Downsizing the Right Move for You?
What is Downsizing?
Downsizing is when you purchase a smaller home than the one you are currently living in. It is often a decision made by empty nesters, or individuals who are struggling to deal with the upkeep of their home or are finding the related costs of home ownership hard to deal with.
For others who may be starting to experience less mobility or more health issues but aren’t quite ready to live in an assisted living facility, downsizing might make it easier to maintain a more independent lifestyle without the added burden or expense of a large home.
Whatever your personal situation might be, at some point we are all likely going to require much less space than we have today. We are here to help you ask the right questions and decide if you are ready for a smaller and more lifestyle efficient home.
Reasons to Consider Downsizing
Struggling with the upkeep of the home
Cost of maintenance/utilities
Paying off debt
The floorplan no longer works for your lifestyle or mobility
Empty nesters
More money for other financial goals such as retirement/travel/etc.
Home is no longer safe due to health conditions
Generational Trends for Selling and Buying
Obstacles to Downsizing
The transition from a very active pace of life to a slower one may signal the right time for moving to a smaller home with fewer maintenance needs or a more age-supportive community. Perhaps the most daunting aspect of downsizing, even for those looking forward to a new living situation, is sorting through and getting rid of a lifetime’s accumulation of stuff. When the health and safety risks outweigh remaining in a home, it’s time to find another living situation. But even when events are not at crisis stage and everyone, including the homeowners, agree on the need to make a transition, taking action can run up against some challenging obstacles—physical and emotional. What stops people from making a transition to a new living situation?
OBSTACLES
Fear of change and loss of familiar routines that define and give meaning to daily life
Fear of loss of independence, control, and privacy, or fear of abandonment
Fear of making a wrong and irrevocable decision
Emotional attachment to a home or place—adult children may be more sentimentally attached and resistant to breaking up a family home than their parents
Determination to hold on to a property so that heirs inherit it
House locked financially or by deferred maintenance issues
Physical and cognitive limitations that prevent taking action
Realization that a move is closer to a last living situation and remaining time is short
Overwhelmed by the tasks involved in selling and moving
Lack of family or a support network to assist
Misapprehension that remaining in the home is “living for free”
As you head into your retirement years there will be many changes to consider, and downsizing your home may be one of them. Depending on what stage of life you are in downsizing may take on a very different meaning than it does for others.
If you are a new empty nester or maybe nearing the end of your working career, downsizing might provide new opportunities and more liquid cash to be able to cut down on time and the expense of maintaining a home that is too big for you now. Maybe the kids have officially moved out and you have 3 extra bedrooms that are not being used. It may free up extra money that provides you so many more opportunities to travel or start new hobbies or even just RELAX!