To Downsize or Not to Downsize? That Is the Question.

If you’re anything like me, you love houses. I mean, really love them. I can walk into a house and, I promise you, some of them just speak to me - the way the light falls across a hallway, the way a kitchen hums with possibility, the feeling that yes, this is a place where good lives have been lived and new life could unfold beautifully.

Over my lifetime I’ve lived in around 30 different houses. Thirty. I know. And as shallow as this might sound, for most of my adult life I’ve been persistently searching for my dream home.

To be honest, I’ve fallen in love with a few castles, but they’ve just been Cinderella dreams!

In reality my dream home has never been huge, not like a mansion, and my idea of the leafy driveway and impressive Georgian frontage is very outdated now I’m retired - but the idea of dream home still exists, and it’s the kind of place that would tick all the boxes and make my heart do a little skip when I walk through the front door.

I’ve been privileged to have lived in some houses that I’ve absolutely loved. The trouble is, now that I’m 68, the rather uninvited concept of downsizing has crept into the conversation. And with it comes the uncomfortable realisation that what constitutes a dream home - the very definition of it - probably needs to change.

This feels a little bit scary, and unfathomable to me!

Our children have launched, with families and lives of their own. My husband and I are, as the old saying goes, like Darby and Joan. One day we may not be able to negotiate stairs or reach the ceiling cobwebs without falling off a ladder. The rambling home with a generous garden and all those spare bedrooms doesn’t quite make the same sense it once did. And if I’m honest neither does the effort required to maintain it.

So why did any of us get lured into buying bigger homes in the first place?

For us, it came down to a few very human reasons: the kids needed space, we wanted a garden for them to run around in, we liked different TV programmes (this remains a non-negotiable), we loved having friends to stay, and frankly - because we could. There was also, if I’m being really honest, a certain social signalling at play. We are, products of the 1980s, when bigger was categorically better. Shoulder pads. Hair. Houses. Nobody told us otherwise — certainly not the banks, and definitely not the advertising industry.

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” — Confucius

In the last few years, something has shifted. There’s been a genuine cultural wave of minimalism - slow-living philosophies, smaller footprints, intentional spaces - and downsizing has quietly become not just acceptable, but aspirational. And it’s got me thinking quite seriously, for the first time, about whether smaller might actually be better.

The Huffington Post put it plainly:

“The prevailing advice for retirees and their first cousins -- pre-retirees -- is to downsize their homes. The logic goes like this: With your kids launched, you no longer need so much space. Plus living in a smaller home will reduce your utility and maintenance bills as well as your taxes. Less expense and less time cutting the grass or fixing things equals more time and pocket change left to enjoy your retirement, or so the conventional wisdom goes.”

So let’s actually lay it out.

The Case for Downsizing

The most obvious win is that it’s simply easier to maintain a smaller home. You can ditch the lawnmower, pare down the DIY toolkit, and reclaim whole weekends. As someone who considers cleaning to be a form of mild punishment (I’d far rather be out walking), the idea of less square footage to vacuum is genuinely appealing.

It’ll cost less to run, too - smaller homes mean lower power bills, cheaper insurance, less water. Over a year, those savings add up to something meaningful.

Then there’s the beautiful, terrifying process of decluttering. Moving forces you to confront everything you own and ask - honestly - whether you actually need it or just haven’t got around to throwing it out. There’s something quite cathartic about that. Possessions, as anyone who’s ever moved house knows, have a sneaky way of accumulating weight - not just physical, but mental. A house stuffed with things we no longer use is a house stuffed with decisions we keep deferring.

“The first step in crafting the life you want is to get rid of everything you don’t.” — Joshua Becker

Downsizing also opens up an interesting possibility: you might be able to afford a home in a more interesting location. Closer to the coast, or a café strip, or your grandchildren, or a good library. Trading square footage for lifestyle amenities - cinemas, restaurants, public transport, a swimming pool around the corner - is a trade that starts to make a lot of sense when you’re no longer commuting and have actual free time to enjoy those things.

And there’s the environmental argument, which I think most of us are taking more seriously these days. A smaller home simply requires less energy to run. Fewer rooms to heat and cool. A smaller footprint in every sense of the word.

But Hold On - It’s Not That Simple

Here’s where it gets complicated, because downsizing is one of those things that sounds marvellous in theory and then gets rather sticky in practice.

For a start, where exactly are you downsizing to? A lovely apartment with a beautiful outlook will likely cost you more than the family home you’re leaving. A retirement village might solve some problems while creating others - and could well eat up a significant chunk of your asset base. A small, affordable unit somewhere sensible sounds great until you’re actually living in one and wondering where the grandchildren are supposed to sleep when they visit.

And speaking of grandchildren - one of the genuine drawbacks of a smaller home is the loss of space for family gatherings. The long table at Christmas. The pull-out sofa for the grandkids. The garden where small people can run around being magnificently feral. These things matter, and you’d be silly to dismiss them.

Then there are the hard costs of actually moving: agent’s fees on the sale, stamp duty on the purchase, the movers, the new curtains (because of course the old ones won’t fit), and whatever you buy to fill the gaps because somehow, even when you downsize, there are gaps. Smart About Money suggests that if downsizing doesn’t reduce your household expenses by at least 25%, it probably isn’t worth the upheaval. That’s a handy benchmark to keep in mind.

And don’t discount the psychological cost, either. Leaving the family home is an emotional reckoning, not just a logistical one.

“The magic of downsizing is that it increases the value of everything you keep.” Marie Kondo

Kondo’s right, of course. But you have to actually want to do it. If the idea of leaving your home fills you with dread rather than liberation, it’s worth pausing before you list it.

A Middle Path?

There are alternatives worth considering before you commit to anything dramatic. Could you rent out a room, or set up an Airbnb arrangement to generate income while staying put? Could you convert the garage into a studio and let it out? Could you renovate rather than relocate, and make the existing home work better for this new, quieter chapter of life?

The bottom line is this: downsizing makes excellent financial and lifestyle sense for many people. But it isn’t a universal solution, and the decision deserves more than a spreadsheet. It deserves a genuine, honest conversation about what you actually want your days to look like - and whether a smaller home will give you more of that, or less.

I don’t have a good answer yet. I’m still still looking at houses and waiting for one of them to speak to me.

Perhaps that one, when it finally speaks, will just be a little smaller than I once imagined.

I’d love to know - have you downsized, or are you thinking about it? What’s been the best (or worst) part? Leave a comment below.

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Until next time,

Jo x