It’s inevitable. At some point you will look at your comfortable living space and make the decision to ‘downsize’. It was a decision we made nearly two years ago but it took us awhile to make the move.
Our larger 2100 sf home suited our city life and activities. We loved our beautiful neighborhood with its green spaces and dog-walking paths. What would induce us to move?
As “Second Half of Lifers” we began to consider what we wanted out of life in this ‘second half’ and what kind of house would accommodate our needs and desires for the next season. Here are some things we considered.
We wanted to be able to travel – we needed a home that had a nice but low maintenance back yard and a neighborhood that felt safe enough to be able to leave our home for longer periods of time.
With aging bodies we didn’t want stairs – we needed a single story home.
We enjoy the restaurants and activities that the city has to offer – we wanted to stay in Phoenix and have relatively easy access to downtown.
We enjoy entertaining – we needed a home that had good entertaining space inside and out.
We no longer had the need for a dedicated spare room for family or guests but we both need a home office – we needed a 3 bedroom home with the flexibility to use one or both as a guest room as needed.
We are both sensitive to noise – we needed a floor plan that separated the common living area from the bedroom area. And although we didn’t want totally compartmentalized rooms, having the common area be one large room would not work well for us.
My husband does not enjoy house renovations – we needed a home that was largely move-in ready and new enough so that home repair wouldn’t be a constant thing.
With retirement in view, if we needed to qualify for a mortgage, doing it while we had two incomes seemed expedient.
And of course it had to fit within our budget – for us that meant living mortgage free.
As a Realtor I had easy access to the market and because it wasn’t an urgent need we took our time…and found the ‘perfect’ house for us. We went from 2100 sf to 1650 sf, but because of the layout, it ‘lives’ like a larger home.
We weren’t yet ready to move so we rented it to a friend for about eight months giving us the time we needed to plan the move and sell our current home at a time when the market was good.
So how do you decide? The key is looking ahead. We hope to be in this home for 20 years. We wanted something that would accommodate us for the long haul as we looked toward the future
- Retirement
- Changing finances
- Shifts in lifestyle
- The need to house other people – short term or long term
- Personal space needs
- Location
I’m glad we made the decision and the move when it wasn’t urgent. We made it in our time and had a relatively low-stress transition.
I’ll write more about the move itself in a later post.
Meanwhile I encourage you to start the conversation even if the move is ways off. What kind of house will best serve you in this next season of life?
