Downsizing is so hard

[BG2015]

Our house is going on the market next week. We live in a 3 storey townhouse, with 4 bedrooms, 2 en-suites and main bathroom, plus an integral garage. Large kitchen diner and south facing garden. We have a great 15 foot square living room with a massive corner sofa.

We are downsizing to get rid of our mortgage. This next house will be our retirement house. I've had a number of health issues so we need to make this move to take it more financially viable for me to finish work.

DS 20, is still with us and will not be moving out anytime soon, so we need 2 large double bedrooms.

We have viewed a few houses and 2 stand out but both would need compromises if we bought them.

We knew it would be hard but not this hard.

First of all, I just want to say well done for thinking ahead about your needs, both financial and housing for your retirement. You have rightly prioritised your health needs in terms of repaying your mortgage so you can finish work.

When we moved to our new house for retirement we compiled a list of what we considered essential i..e. how many bedrooms, level garden, location near services and transport links, etc. etc. Then a list of things definitely ruled out i.e. isolated, steep garden, etc. etc. We also did a 'nice to have, but not essential list'. This absolutely clarified our needs and in the end we only viewed the house that we bought, as on the whole it was perfect for our needs.

It's not easy, particularly as it sounds as though you absolutely love your present house - but hopefully once you start viewing more houses you will find something that you fall in love with. It's good to move before it becomes absolutely essential too - while you've both got the energy to achieve it. We were mid-sixties and I wouldn't have wanted to leave it any longer. Good luck op.

@DaphneduM thanks, we know we're doing the right thing but it's finding a balance isn't it.

We need at least 2 double bed rooms, south facing garden, kitchen diner or smaller kitchen with separate dinning room, parking for 3 cars and a garage or shed.

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/142615553

We looked a this house this morning. Beautifully finished. But, No storage at all, no garage or shed and a small child would struggle to get into the loft, the access was tiny, so we would have to pay to get that made bigger.

I left asking where would I put the vacuum cleaner. 🤷‍♀️

That’s the trouble with a downsize. You often only want to lose upstairs rooms and not the downstairs space!
My friend has just moved in similar circumstances and ended up with a modern bungalow. She has a child in one of the rooms which can become an extra reception room when child moves out. Another friend bought somewhere with an annexe that can be rented or used for guests in the future.
Great advice above. Get your non negotiables on a list.

We are already looking ahead at doing this, although it will probably be 4 years away. But I’m realising the same as you, it’s hard to find a smaller house that will still be practical.

Yes, I agree. We've been looking at Rightmove for some time, but there are so few houses that meet our needs, I am now beginning to see why people stay put for so much longer than they need.
Trying to find detached, smaller houses is not easy where we are. We want to future proof, so want things like downstairs toilet, separate living space, parking, smaller outside space. But we've got used to not having living spaces attached, and it seems like a 'backwards move' to have to start thinking about keeping the noise down, or worrying about neighbours who don't.

Thing is - you have to stop thinking like a big house person. People and belongings expand to fit available space.

Also "laughs in London" at the idea that the housw in the link is too small for three people.

I don’t know that area you’re looking in so can’t advise except there seem to be some great options locally. Jealous of your local house prices!
One thing worth a possible compromise is SF garden. If it’s long enough you’ll always have some sun. We ended up with a house with NF garden and no regrets.

Me and DH did this 3 years ago. It was a massive job - far bigger than we thought it would be.

My top tip - learn to do eBay and get rid of as much stuff as possible. I sold most of the contents of our house, garden, and garage.

Even so - we still had way too much stuff to fit into the downsize house. So I sold a load more and gave lots away.

Our new house also had no storage, but I learned that the less stuff you have, the better a downsized life is. We all have way too much stuff and it just clutters up your life.

I don't know the area at all you are looking in so this was suggested by Rightmove as a similar property to the one you posted, seems to have south facing garden, garage etc but might be a no for the area or price as it is £240k rather than £220k but not sure of your budget. Anyway, here it is

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/138138512#/?channel=RES_BUY

I'd compromise on the house but not on the garden. If there wasn't space to put a shed/summerhouse/home office potentially I wouldn't consider it

@KinS24 you can always move we have lived in several places due to jobs. Came up North for jobs and cheaper housing.

Our hoover lives in an ikea wardrobe in the spare room! We have pull out drawers built under the stairs for shoes. Every member of the household has their summer bedding vacuum packed into a carry on suitcase, which lives inside their big suitcase, which goes under their bed. We don’t even have a loft because we converted it- only eaves storage that contains Xmas decorations and our skis! I agree with stop thinking like a big house person. You figure this stuff out. That house you’ve linked is lovely!

I think thr issue here is you are comparing it to your current house, and fundamentally you don’t wish to downsize you’re doing it as you know it needs to be done.

you also know people live in these houses, they store their hoovers, and make it work and if you want a shed you can put one in very cheaply.

i guess it’s accepting the reality of what it looks like to downsize.

@Frasers that's what we've got to get our head around.

Think I need to start declutterring.

Sadly I have three DC very attached to their friends, girlfriends and jobs here in outer London 😭. No prospect of them affording anything for a few years so I am stuck here housing them until they’re 30 I think. I quite fancy the Stoke area otherwise. Some lovely countryside around there.

We moved a couple of years ago into what is (hopefully) our final home.
It wasn't a downsize as we could see no benefit in doing that, saving money on the house purchase would have meant loosing space and we just weren't willing to do that. In fact, the house is slightly larger than our old house as we are taking into account reduced mobility in old age (a definite issue for one of us).
What was important to us was the floorspace, ability to take a stair lift (or even a lift), separate bathrooms and good sized bedrooms. Garden, driveway, garage etc were non-negotiable and as already said by a PP, it needed to be future-proof so remodeling isn't required in the future.

IMO, when downsizing you will have to accept that associated spaces are smaller unless you manage across a gem which is a small house on a reasonable plot which leads itself to remodelling.

Agree with the big declutter!
storage is always doable. In that house you saw you could make the small bedroom a storage room for example.

We have viewed a few houses and 2 stand out but both would need compromises if we bought them.

We knew it would be hard but not this hard.

You're making it hard. Whatever house you buy at whatever stage be it first home or "forever home" or retirement home will need some degree of compromise. No house is perfect.

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/139155821

We're going to look at this one next weekend. It's been up for sale a while so not sure what the issue is there but it's bigger and offers more flexibility than the previous linked house.

You might find a house not as smartly done up is actually more useful. Our house is about the same footprint but we are a family of 4. Haven't converted understairs cupboard and have a car port/lightweight garage and a garden cabin and have boarded the loft.
I'm really glad we downsized. It was so releasing to weed out possessions to just what we needed rather than what we had accumulated.

That was in response to previous house link!

Hi. We moved out of exactly the same size house four years ago but our DC had moved out by then. We’ve bought a two bed end terrace it’s got two en suite bedrooms and a downstairs toilet, it sounds big but it’s really not.
I have to admit I hated it at first but it did need lots of work to bring it up to scratch, more than we anticipated. I do like it now, apart from we have nowhere to put a permanent dining table, which is a pain when the DGC visit, we have to keep one in the shed and bring it in. We have an understairs cupboard as well which as you can imagine is full ! No garage.

I wish my parents would do this! As they've aged, their huge home is an albatross around their necks.

I love both those house your looking at . A lot bigger than mine. You have to be ruthless and declutter big time. Just think about being cosy, cheaper overheads and a lot less cleaning and decorating.

Both houses you linked are large, you can buy sheds. You also have a spare room, why can’t the hoover live there? Or your son has the single room, and the second double has storage cupboards etc. An adult child does not need a double room.