Downsizing

BobQ

I think downsizing as you get older is worthwhile but the big question I ask myself is at what age do I become so decrepit that I cannot face the prospect at all.

PennyForThem_2

I am 63 and live in a 4 bedroom house on my own. My deceased husband hoarded books, football memorablia and programmes some of which are valuable.

I live overlooking a lake in a park in a city (not London). I really want to have some retirement years appreciating this venue which is ideal for walking and observing nature, yet within a bus ride of city shops etc.

I intend to sort out when I retire at 65 as I got so stressed doing / thinking about it when husband died. I want to move at 70-73 to somewhere smaller. I am building up a pension pot to increase pension at 70 to be able to pay for extra heating etc

What I am saying is that you must make a positive decision to de-clutter before you move and preferrbly several years before you want to move.

SailorSam

There was a couple on Breakfast Tv i think it was last week who had downsized by buying a small yaught and sailing around the world. Now they were back home they thought they'd sail the Uk and maybe inland waterways in Europe.
Fancy the idea of waking up and instead of the garden pond you've got the Indian Ocean outside your window.

moneyistooshorttomention

Not so much a "to downsize or not to downsize" question, but I tend to think its practical to be sure you are in a house that will "do you for life" during your 60s at the latest (and preferably early 60s at that).

I always assumed I'd be in such a house by my 40s, but when retirement came and I still wasn't, then I decided "I've simply got to now regardless" and that has meant moving across country to get a "higher up the ladder" house.

Overall, I think it will work out basically, as I was getting so frustrated at not being able to get on with my gardening (ie because I didn't have a garden..just a little back yard, where the best I could do was things in tubs) and having too small a kitchen for the keen cook I am and felt I'd had to put up with neighbours noise through the walls for way more years than expected (courtesy of not being in a detached house) and wasn't prepared to put up with it any longer.

Area-wise, it's been/still is at times a "shock to the system" and there are swings and roundabouts.

What I do know for sure was that I was too old (at early 60s) to wait any longer to move and I could certainly "feel it" when I was busily getting this house renovated. I'm not sure I've had been able to make myself do it to get that work done if I had got as far as my 70s before moving, as I would have got too "far down the road" with getting into my retirement lifestyle (as best I could in a house unfitted to me at any age) to move by then. I could see that I would, quite possibly, have ended up sitting in that starter house and steadily neglecting it more and more because "Its not worth it" and "Its not my home" would have been reeling through my head on continuous loop and so had to move then not to land up living in an almighty dump iyswim.

Many people seem to expect that ill health will be inevitable as they get older. I tend to think that, more often than not, "You get what you expect" and for anyone who DOES expect ill health when getting older, then they definitely need to get a move on and move before "their expectations are fulfilled", as they probably will be.

Errata

BobQ wrote: »

I think downsizing as you get older is worthwhile but the big question I ask myself is at what age do I become so decrepit that I cannot face the prospect at all.

Do it when you don't need to do it, because you won't be able to do it when you do need to.

tgon

Errata wrote: »

Do it when you don't need to do it, because you won't be able to do it when you do need to.

Good advice. I dont want to ever think that my next house will be my last house. :A

missile

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

....

But I'm wondering whether this is the right decision? Absolute dilemma. It's a head and heart situation.
).

There is no right decision, but I would suggest don't leave your decision too long.
My aunt has lived for many years in a beautiful large detached house, in what was once a leafy suburb of Nottingham. The area has attracted buy to let investors who have turned neighbouring properties into flats and others are used as social housing for large families. The value of her house has plummeted to the point where she can no longer afford to downsize.....

Optimist

We have just downsized and moved to a wonderfully friendly little place in North Yorkshire
.
The main problem we found in moving from a big 4 bed house into a smaller 2 bed was getting our minds around the space or lack of it plus getting rid of surplus furniture and stuff we had kept for years "just in case"

One thing we did do was make the spare bedroom into a bedroom/office by fitting a unit called a studybed this enables us to have a spare bed for visitors and a office/den when no visitors.

Now we are in and sorted I think it will be a great move especially as we can now fritter away the surplus cash from the sale of the big house, on holidays and generally enjoying life.

Savvy_Sue

tgon wrote: »

Good advice. I dont want to ever think that my next house will be my last house. :A

:rotfl: When we were trying to move nearly 15 years go, I told the estate agent I didn't care whether or not the house we bought would hold its value, because I was NEVER moving again, and they would be taking me out in a box, so it would NOT be my problem.

I'd still like to take that view and it could be made reasonably disabled friendly should the need arise, BUT two of us rattling around in a very large house with high ceilings isn't morally or environmentally justifiable for me, not to mention extremely un-MSE ... In an ideal world I'd live in community, but OTOH we do enjoy it just being me and him ...

Love that study bed. Someone I used to know had a double bed with a desk on wheels which you could push over the end of the bed when you didn't need the bed, and pull off the end of the bed at night. It only left a small space to get round the bed, but worked better than having the desk anywhere else.

seven-day-weekend

Updating to say - out and about on our travels we saw this:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-49496849.html/svr/2717;jsessionid=6D131EBCE2CF7630F2674A43712305CD?premiumA=true

We have offered, and have had accepted, £138k:):T:j:beer::T

It's about a mile from where we live now. It has shops either end of the road, walking distance to a pub, a church around the corner (although we shall continue attending our present one, but it's there if we want it), we can keep the same Doctor , the bus comes right down the road every 15 minutes and although it is on an estate, it's right on the edge so doesn't feel as though it is. Ideal.

It needs a bit of work doing, but that just means it will feel like ours. We are going to make the present kitchen area a utility area and have the main kitchen in the rest of the room. There will still be room for a table. The garage needs re-roofing and the bungalow may need a rewire, also the double glazing needs replacing at some point and the whole place needs decorating, but really it's the kitchen and garage that need doing urgently.

The garden is bigger than our present one and we are hoping we can relocate our wildlife pond there - we can physically move the pond as it is plastic, and hopefully if we take some sludge and plants and original water and a few frogs they will recolonise. As it is hopefully in the spring when we get the keys, we will be able to take some frogspawn . If we can't take the pond (taking advice on whether to move frogs) the we'll start off another one with our own frogspawn.

Our mortgage broker is confident he can get us a mortgage on our present house, so that we can do the work in the bungalow before selling, which will be good. He will let us know hopefully in the next few days. If he can't then we'll put the house on the market next week (the vendors do know our position, I don't think they are in a hurry as it is an inherited property).

Excited!