Moving house in your 60‘s kids grown up. What did you do?

[mumma24]

Did you upsize and renovate?
downsize to a bungalow?
move to the seaside or country?
move closer to family and grandchildren?
move to free up money for retirement?
sell your house and go travelling?
would love to know your story and any tips and advice along the way.

We downsized at 50, relocated to a city, bought a bungalow, best decision we made, our adult sons came with us. Our downsize was early than expected due to my health, I was unexpectedly diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at 40, and living in a large house became difficult.

Moved 3 miles from 4 bed over 3 floors to 3 bed at 66. We are in a lovely area, close to green spaces but only 15 mins drive from the city. Good frequent public transport if we need it, great bars and independent cafes close at hand.
Bills are less and we have money to have fun with. Absolutely love our house.
Dh has 3 gcs about 20 mins away who we see every couple of months or so.

We moved at 50 to a small town on a few miles inland Shops, pubs, nice house, brilliant docs. Train station to take us to London or the coast ( didn't want to be car reliant). Youngest DD has now finished school and will be off to uni. Oldest 2 didn't move with us.
We plan to retire here. Only slight issue is there is no scope to downsize the house. There are no cheaper houses ( housing stock limited and the 3 bed houses are about 80% of the cost of our modest 4 bed). Should be OK but council tax is nearly £4k for an F!

How did you decide where to live?

That our plan for our sixties. We have massive garden with chickens and other livestock. We live extremely rurally with sheep as well as humans for neighbours. I love it but it’s not what I want for retirement. I couldn’t drive for a few weeks for medical reasons and I don’t even want a rural town in case I can’t drive when older. I worked in London for years and would happily live there. My husband never has but luckily he fancies it too.

Moved to my own retirement dream in the heart of the countryside. Converted country house into retirement apartments, really lovely. Rented so my money is not tied up in accommodation, rents very cheap because of the rural area and retirement living, and includes all bills too so no worries about keeping warm or council tax rises. Beautiful grounds which are managed for us although we can do our own bit of gardening if we so wish. Lovely country walks, peace and quiet, wonderful scenery. Never been so happy in my life.

If you are a keen gardener, and want to downsize the garden, you might want to consider getting an allotment. Most allotments have a society or social groups. If it all gets too much, you can give it up easily, whereas a garden stays with the house.

Upsized to a 4 bed, 3.5 bath, semi rural and should have a lovely outlook when builders have left.

I’m about to downsize but will absolutely not be moving to a bungalow in case of mobility problems in the future.
There was a study that showed that elderly people living in bungalows physically decline more quickly than those living in multi storey houses.

I'm late 50s and I have just decluttered and downsized from a big 5-bed semi in a regional city to a two-bed split level converted flat in zone 2 London, with a small garden. I have everything I could possibly need within 10-15 minutes' walking distance, and it's a short hop on the train to central London for all the cultural stuff I have been missing. I chose a place with lots of living and dining space for family gatherings rather than bedrooms that will hardly be used.

I am trying not to repeat the mistakes of my parents, who stayed for 50 years in the huge, cluttered, high-maintenance family house in a place where they were housebound once they could no longer drive as there was no public transport and nothing within walking distance, and their mobility issues meant they couldn't even get outside independently to enjoy the huge back garden.

I am going to see how my knees hold up, and will consider moving again to somewhere single-level in 15 years or so if necessary.

After lots of thinking and discussions and Rightmove researching, DH and I have decided we’re staying put. We have everything we need where we are - walking distance to nice high street, direct line to london in well under an hour, pubs; close to GP, decent hospitals; public transport to major airports. We are part of our community with a lot of local friends, connections and acquaintances. Our house is bigger than we need but downsizing locally would not release meaningful capital until we’re at the retirement flat stage.

It’s a crying shame as we’re in an expensive bit of the SE and moving anywhere else would liberate loads of cash.

Will be moving from our large family home, either bungalow with small garden or considering garden apartment to free up house deposit money for our 2 DC. Either will be a walk to the sea and a vibrant high street with independent shops, cafes and restaurants. This will happen in next 2/3 years and I can’t wait. We currently maintain our large garden, my in-laws large garden, albeit they are in a bungalow but on a large plot & too far away to walk to shops. I used to love gardening (C&G qualified)but see it as a real chore now that I don’t enjoy but needs to be done. Give me a few pots on a patio area, even large balcony any day.

Please let me know if any apartments come on the market!!

Like @olderbutwiser we are very happy with the location of our house, walking distance to everything we need. It’s going to be far bigger than we need in a couple of years but the cost of moving to a smaller house in this area means it’s not worth while. It’s also big enough downstairs that we could convert a living room to a bedroom if one of us became immobile. Plus the garden is not too big so manageable.

I don’t have any desires to move to a different part of the country but if we were struggling on our pensions we would probably look at moving back to our home country where property is cheaper.

But would be reluctant to do so as we would then not see our children as often.

We moved in our mid-sixties and had several aims. The main one was to be nearer our daughter and grandchildren - she was very keen for this to happen. We also wanted a much smaller garden - our garden was large with an orchard and thinking ahead it would have become too much work. Our cottage was very old (17th century) and although we'd renovated it to a good standard, there's always more ongoing maintenance with a very old property. Also being in the country, you needed to drive as public transport was not great.

We did a list of essentials and also things it would be nice to have. We definitely didn't want a bungalow. We ended up with a larger house but a much smaller garden. Modern four bed but had the benefit of a beautiful old sandstone barn wall forming one of our boundaries. The bus stop is outside which takes us into the nearest city in about 30 minutes. Doctors surgery, shops, supermarkets and small independent cinema a mile away. We're approx. 30 minutes from our daughter which is perfect - they love our new area and there's lots of activities and walks for the children. We're still defined as rural, which I love, as a country girl I couldn't imagine living in a town - but we've got the best of both worlds. Still plenty of scope in the garden as we actually have a good sized front one too - and room for a couple of cold frames to grow my plants and seeds. Our new house was quite a bit cheaper than our cottage so that was an added bonus.

We have a second downstairs room which could be used as a bedroom and there's room for a downstairs shower if needed, so fairly future proofed. I have a dressing room, the grandchildren their own bedroom for sleepovers, two bathrooms (one each!!! yay) and a hobbies room for my husband. Garage for storage which we didn't have at our last house. So incredibly practical all round.

As anyone who reads the property threads on here knows, moving is stressful, uncertain and expensive - so we only wanted to do it once. While no-one knows what the future holds it's important to get the house you are happy with - moving to a small flat for example would have killed my soul. If you're in mid-sixties there's plenty of life to be lived yet!

I'm enjoying this thread. I think late 50's or early 60's is a good time to make a move. I'm frustrated because DH has dug his heels in and refuses to downsize. We have a 6 bedroom with good size garden in large town. Only 3 bedrooms are used. I would prefer to downsize to a 4 bedroom house with smaller garden and free up cash for more holidays and to help our DC out more. ATM DH has a huge double garage he uses as a workshop and he just won't give it up. I'm worried in 10 years time we might not be well enough to make a move and all the decluttering that we would have to do.

How I decided was driven by cost, south east London was cheaper than north London. So I live 5 minutes walk from 256 acre Greenwich Park to walk the dogs. I also needed a LOT of space because of books and I’m rubbish at declutterring so I went for incredibly ugly but massive maisonette (1600 squarefeet) as cheaply as possible (well under 500k)

Check out areas close to Greenwich (westcombe park/blackheath standard/blackheath/hither green/Lee/some of Eltham and all the way up Shooter’s Hill Road/charlton, near Charlton house/some of Lewisham)

I'm not there yet but once DCs are gone, I'd like to move out of our family home, a decent sized semi in a small town, to an apartment in a city somewhere, with all amenities on doorstep so I don't have to drive.

It’s your life as well, and a work shop is possible in any house!

Be firm. Research smaller houses with potential work shop space and agree a plan. Such a waste to have such a big house, and the money could be used to help dc and travel.

We've started it and we are early 50's.

I didn't want to be like my parents. I'm not sure what the age is that old people get to, but didn't want to risk being one of those ones that refuses to move out of a cluttered, large home.

We've bought a bungalow in a lovely village with walkable amenities. It needs a complete renovation, but the plan is to get this done whilst we are working ft, so it's all done for when we retire.

I did this recently on my own. Had lived in previous home for 20+ years and needed a change.

Plan was to purchase a property for my old age. Not a bungalow but with a downstairs shower room and smaller than my old house.

I viewed 15 properties that sort of fitted my brief and none sparked joy (as Marie Kondo might say). So decided to view anything at all within the area I wanted - close to shops/cafes etc and 30 mins or so from family.

And in this way I found my dream house - had never had a dream house before or one that made me say 'Wow' to myself as I walked around it. It wasn't what I thought I needed but it became what I wanted. Larger than my previous house, more stairs, smaller garden. Old but in mainly good repair.

It would benefit from redecoration and I might do something about that further down the line but I'm not going to start putting in new kitchens and bathrooms as I would have done in my younger days.

I'm currently fit, active, work, socialise and if things change adaptations could be made. Or I could move again. I now realise that being older doesn't mean I have to settle for something that doesn't suit me now but might suit me in the future.

mid 50s, sold big house in UK and bought a single storey house in mallorca. 10 minutes drive from a town but on a bus route. Our house is smaller but the garden is huge! We now have more visitors than in the UK as everyone wants to come here for a holiday!

Our quality of life is way higher here and there’s a very supportive English speaking community so all in all it was a great move.

We always thought we'd downsize and release capital to fund our retirement. However - thanks to life's lottery - we then had two children with additional needs, one of whom will never be able to work. So, if we can afford it, we're hoping to set them up in a flat (they're in their 20s now) and move ourselves to a flat/small house nearby. We want our children to learn to be independent and this way we can still support them, but they will hopefully learn to be less reliant on us.

One of the key things to a successful move is being able to negotiate between you - no one house is going to be perfect. My husband gave up his very large telescope system as there wasn't room for it at our new house. I gave up my large greenhouse. However as someone else suggested, of course there will be scope for a workshop at another property.

Depending how far you want to take it, you could also say maybe as you want different things, you will move on with your half of the house equity to get what you want. Therefore he will be much less likely to be able to afford a house with a decent workshop space. So many modern houses have garages which could easily be made into workshops with innovative use of storage, equipment etc. They usually have both power and light in them too (ours certainly does and it's over twenty years old now).

I wouldn't give up on this one, it's your life too and if you don't want to be stuck in a six bedroom house, then don't be. You realise the waste of those unused three bedrooms - you need to subtly start giving your husband a reality check!

Also to add, declutter ruthlessly. This makes packing and moving so much easier and life is so much easier without unnecessary stuff. And if you do move again it's less daunting to do so.

It also creates a first step to getting the moving process going and, when you come to market your house, it will look so much larger and more attractive without your mass of jumble in it.