Are you at that age or time in life that it seems downsizing is appropriate? Have you recently retired or are thinking about retiring soon? Are you thinking about moving to the state that your children and spouses and grandkids moved to, hundreds of miles away? Whatever the reason, here are 7 tips to help you make that decision go smoother.
1. Making the big decision
The hardest part of downsizing was convincing my husband to move. I’m the person that handles the finances in our family. It took a lot of convincing, to get him there. I looked at many houses without him, since he can eliminate a house by driving by it and he didn’t want to move. He had his list of must-haves and his list grew as time went on. It started with a place to store his boat, an office area, and a garden area. Eventually, he added a pool to his list and solar panels. My list included three beds, two baths, and about 1800 square feet maximum. And I refused to have a house payment, anymore.
Selling the house was a hard decision for my husband. This was complicated even more by the closeness of his family. They are very close. I think it’s a result of being orphans who were adopted by the same family. Not only in their relationship, their closeness included distance. One sister lived across the street. The other was across the street from the church we all attended, about 1.5 miles away. And their adopted brother lived two blocks away. It was almost too close for me, but I get along with them fine, so I survived.
Downsizing is not something to decide in a day. Make a list of must-haves, price range, the minimum number of bedrooms and bathrooms required, and location preferred. This will help you with your decision process.
2. Eliminating houses that will not work
I drove by a bunch of houses, to either add them to the list or eliminate them. However, unlike my husband, I had viewed them on our real estate agent’s website. So I knew what the inside and back yard looked like. I also knew the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, plus the square feet. It didn’t take long for me to determine, it would be impossible to find a house in our small community. Or at least not one we could purchase with cash. My husband was determined to stay in our community. So moving to a different house that included a house payment, defeated the purpose in both of our minds.
Our real estate agent took me to about a dozen houses, possibly more. I wanted to eliminate them or put them on the list for my husband to see. I also checked out every open house I could, to get a feel of what pricing was like. Houses anywhere close to our price range were going fast. Unless, of course, they were in bad areas or needed a major remodel. It became time to switch communities, which surprisingly my husband agreed to consider.
If you have a spouse or someone else that is purchasing the house with you, be sure they are involved in the search. You can start out on your own, but narrow it down, to keep the actual time making the decision less time consuming. This is especially important if they aren’t as excited about moving as you are.
3. Give and Take
My husband viewed six or seven houses with our realtor and me. One of them had a pool. It was also two-story and I really didn’t want that. We are too old for a master bedroom upstairs. And it had solar, something my husband really wanted. However, I didn’t see the value of solar, based on our low utility bills. We couldn’t come to an agreement on that one.
Another contender was the one that I thought he might really like. It had a beautiful yard with garden space and a parking area for his boat. I was willing to give up an inside laundry room. But the inside really needed a lot of work. I was trying to look past that, but in the end, I knew he was right. However, it was only a few blocks from my mom’s house, which was important to me.
Another house that I felt had potential, also needed a lot of work, but I saw great potential in it. We have remodeled houses before so that wouldn’t hold us back. It had a good size rectangular yard, with room to store the boat. Once again there was a laundry area in the garage, a concession I was willing to make. My husband didn’t see the potential that I did. Maybe I was getting desperate. It dropped off our list quickly.
If this is a joint decision, expect to experience some give and take. Neither of you can insist on getting everything on your list unless you have plenty of money and a large inventory of houses to look at in your price range. The smaller your must-have list is, the easier it will be to get what you want.
4. Mom and other important items
My mother is in her 80’s and has had quite a few health concerns. And she absolutely hates going to the doctor. The time my mom had her first stroke, I happened to be off work for the day. My plan was to get some personal things done. My mother called me and asked me to take her to the hospital because she thought she was having a stroke. I tried to persuade her to call an ambulance, or I could call one. No, she didn’t want to upset the neighbors. I drove the fifteen to twenty minutes to her house and brought her to the hospital emergency room. She was right, she did have a stroke. So being the eldest daughter, I felt the need to live a bit closer to her. Just in case, for those times when she needed a lift to the emergency room.
This may not be something that affects your location decision, but it could be. So add it to your list if it is important to live close to a special person or place. It could be you want to live closer to work, or to your children’s school, or your church.
Is this the right one?
The final house was one I had viewed at an open house. I had taken my mom with me. It was a house built in the ’60s that had only had one owner. Then a guy bought it to flip. He updated the kitchen and bathrooms. And sanded and refinished the original hardwood floors. The inside and outside had been repainted, and most of the hardware and light fixtures were replaced. There were no sprinklers and the back yard was dead, except for about a dozen rose bushes. The flipper had run out of money and left some things not quite finished. We were able to see past most of that. There was plenty of room in the unusually shaped back yard for a shed, garden, and boat storage. It had 4 bedrooms, which was an extra bonus, plus a small inside laundry room. Perfect for us!
5. Making it work financially
I didn’t really think my husband would go for it. But it seemed like a nice, quiet, well-cared-for neighborhood. Due to so many things not quite finished and the condition of the back yard I wanted to go low on the price. We did. And of course, he countered, because the poor guy had held onto the house for too long. I didn’t have pity for a guy that didn’t connect the kitchen vent to the outside. The laundry room used to be part of the garage, that he had enclosed. He put the venting into the wall, instead of to the outside. Fire hazard. And on the list went. His counter was halfway between asking and our offer. We accepted with a list of items he needed to address.
I knew that with the price we agreed on, we would still have enough money to pay closing costs and purchase the additional items we needed like window coverings and cement pads. It would not give me a much of a cushion, in the event that I had underpriced repairs.
If necessary, have someone help you determine the financial costs of moving, to make sure you don’t come up short in the end. This could likely be your realtor. You will have closing costs on both ends of the transaction. Plus you must remember that you will need to pay off your existing home loan and a second mortgage if you have them.
6. Downsizing the stuff
If you are downsizing, that will mean you will be eliminating some of your possessions, since you will have less room to fit them in your new floor plan and also to store them. Cupboard storage was something we gave up a lot of, both in the house and garage.
Before the move, I tried to get rid of as much of our stuff as I could. My husband ran out of time and didn’t get rid of enough stuff. In the end, some of the stuff we moved to our new home, was sold or taken to the dump. This ended up requiring more work to move it and then get rid of it. I strongly advise against doing it this way.
When downsizing, consider everything as a possible item to get rid of before the move. This could mean a large desk that must be eventually replaced with something smaller. And paperwork should be reduced. Maybe the number of file cabinets you own should also be reduced. For more ideas see this post about selling your excess stuff on Facebook: https://growingoldereveryday.com/too-much-stuff/
The benefits of downsizing
The biggest benefit to us was no more house payment. I had been paying $1,500 a month in an attempt to pay off the mortgage sooner, rather than later. So no house payment meant either more money to spend or in our case less money needed to live on. Therefore, we could retire earlier than planned.
We have a smaller home, that is easier to maintain. We had mini blinds throughout the previous home that took me four to six hours to clean. There were so many big windows. Now, we have less windows and most of them have shutters, which are much easier to clean. I have one less bathroom to clean, replaced by a fourth bedroom.
My husband added a gate to our alley fence and a cement pad in our yard for his boat. No more parking it on the driveway. It’s much more secure behind a locked gate. We ended up being much closer to my mom, which was important to me.
Be sure to make a list of the benefits for your downsizing, before you put your house up for sale. If there isn’t a benefit to downsizing for you, then maybe it’s not yet time to downsize.
7. Compromising
We knew we would be giving up some things. That’s what it means to downsize. I have less storage space. We gave up our over-sized three car garage for a basic two car garage. My laundry room is about 1/3 the size of the previous one. Our eat in kitchen area is smaller than “cozy.”
Overall, everything is smaller. But, by selling our much larger home, in a pricier area, we were able to pay cash for this one. Plus we had enough money left over to make changes and repairs. Those changes included sprinklers, trees, and lawn in the back yard. Cement pads for a new shed and my husband’s boat. Curtains, drapes, and shutters throughout since the windows were bare. Rugs, a sofa bed for the fourth bedroom, a new refrigerator, and ceiling fans. Additionally, we bought a lot of miscellaneous things like rain gutters for the back of the house and cupboards and a sink for the laundry room. We did go from a home that seemed perfect, to one that took almost two years to make it the way we want it.
Life is full of compromises. You must be willing to give up your indoor laundry room or that 2nd bathroom if you find an otherwise perfect home for you. Maybe, in the end, you will realize that those must-haves weren’t as important as you thought.
We did it!
This house will never be our previous house. But that’s o.k., it’s perfect for our current needs. The joy of not making a house payment and having smaller utility, homeowner’s insurance, and property tax bills, is more than worth it. I’m so happy we made this decision.
Are the compromises you will need to make, going to leave you happy? Or will you be wishing you could do a re-do and go back to your old house? The decision is something to spend time on, to ensure that after the change has been made, you will be happy, not remorseful. If you decide to downsize now, I wish you luck as you eliminate houses that might work and make that final decision. Welcome to your new Home, Sweet, Home.
