Downsizing the family home

[CdnCarrie]

With an empty nest and retirement looming in a few short years I’m thinking about downsizing eventually. Lots of my cohorts have or are talking about it.

Did you downsize? Was it a difficult decision?
Are you happy where you are now?

 

[Meriweather]

No...we didn't. We like our space and the grand kids are over a lot.

We love our house and DD has already put a claim to it when we are no longer here
I don't want a small house. We like all our things!
Lots of Disney stuff and DH has a lot of things in the second garage (that's his shop)

 

[Christine]

No experience here. I always thought I would downsize but no matter how small I get, I don't think I can live as cheaply as I do in the house I have right now.

 

[Travel60]

I haven't downsized - most of the time our 5 br, 3 1/2 ba house holds just the 2 of us. I think about it. Especially since my house has seldom-used formal LR and formal DR.

But. Both our kids moved away but within driving distance. Four or five times a year the house is full and happy with kids and grands. For now, that is worth it.

When we downsized my in-laws years ago, DD was moving into her first apartment so she got some furniture. DS was in college and got plates, pots, pans. BIL and DH took what they wanted and we either donated or trashed the rest. The hardest was an old player piano. We tried so hard to give it away, even called the manufacturer. But in the end, 1-800-Got Junk came and threw it in the back of a truck.

 

[focusondisney]

We retired 2 years ago & aren’t downsizing our home because we never upsized. We’ve been in our 1600 sq ft house 41 years & raised our 2 kids here. About 30 years ago, my friends were moving to larger new builds & I briefly considered it too. A brand new kitchen & 2 car garage would have been nice. But I saw how quickly my kids were growing up & knew they’d be gone in no time. I didn’t want to be stuck cleaning a big house as I got older either. We’ve made a lot of updates so everything is fresh & comfortable. The only issue is it’s a 2 story. I’ve looked at patio homes in the area..new builds are 2-300K more than our house is worth. Not spending that much in retirement. Anything affordable looks outdated compared to our current updated home. So if the stairs get to be an issue, we’ll put in a stair lift.

We live in a suburban development, centrally located to shopping, restaurants & our medical providers. Homes in the development are nicely kept up, the town is very good with trash, plowing, recreation & road maintenance. Our neighbors are wonderful. And good neighbors make life very pleasant. That’s another reason we don’t want to move… who knows what kind of neighbors we’d end up with.

So we intend to stay in this house. I don’t want to burden my kids with cleaning out a lot of junk like my siblings & I had to do at our parents home. So I am trying to downsize “stuff”.

 

[LoveDaisy]

We are starting to talk about retirement. I think we will move but not necessarily to a smaller house. We would like something with a bedroom on the main floor so we don’t have to worry about stairs as we age. We would also like to be on the water. We will not move now, I live 2 miles from my parents and want to be close if they need anything.