It can be easy to wait too long to downsize your home and miss your best opportunity if you aren’t mindful of the market and your needs. Your once perfect home may no longer meet your financial, health and safety needs now. Check out these 10 signs that downsizing in the future may be the right move for you:
1. Monthly Housing Expenses are more than 30%
According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) paying more than 30% qualifies you as “financially burdened” and paying more than 50% designates you as “severely burdened”. Downsizing can reduce monthly debt and increase monthly cash flow.
2. Overwhelmed with Home Maintenance
Taking care of repairs, painting, and mowing are time-consuming tasks that aren’t most peoples vision of relaxation and could become physically challenging for people as they age.
3. Unused Rooms
If your guest bedroom is looking more like a storage space than the perfect retreat for your friends and family or you can’t remember the last time you stepped into that room then it might be time to look for less square footage. Unused rooms end up costing you money especially if heated and cooled, using up unnecessary electricity, gas or oil.
4. Home no longer fits your needs
Stairs making it difficult to access living spaces, steep driveways presenting fall risks, mowing the lawn and landscaping has become difficult, bathtubs and showers without grab bars? These are all home features that were no bother to you when you first moved in but as you grow older can become impractical during your day-to-day life.
5. You’re away more often than not
Do you find yourself away from home frequently? Whether it’s for business or you just love to travel, it may make more sense to relocate to a more convenient location or downsize your home. Costs to maintain a property you rarely stay at could be used instead on more traveling adventures.
6. Pivotal Life Change
Divorce, death of a spouse, job loss, or children moving out of the home are a few major life changes that could make you consider whether your current space is the best match for your new situation. When it comes to divorce, it’s not often that one partner has enough assets to buy out the other nor qualify for the mortgage under a single income. Selling the home helps avoid financial insecurity as they navigate their next phase in life.
7.Retirement
One of the most common reasons people begin looking into downsizing their home, is because they are moving towards retirement. Finding ways to decrease your yearly expenses allows you to get the most of your retirement savings, purchasing a more affordable home will reduce mortgage payments, property taxes and insurance costs.
8. Options to live anywhere
Do you no longer need to be tied to one location? Retirees, empty nesters, or digital nomads have the opportunity to live and explore anywhere their hearts desire. Find a spot you would love to live whether its close to family, by the sea or a countryside retreat.
9. Your Home has Equity
Home values have risen steadily over the years. By cashing out, you can make the money tied up in a larger home work for you more directly. Want to set up your retirement or knock some items off your bucket list? Proceeds from a home sale are a great way to jumpstart your financial goals.
10.Lifestyle change
Is your home in the perfect neighborhood because it’s a great place to raise a young family? Maybe it was near your former job? As your family grows up and out of the house or jobs shift, what was once the perfect community may not longer be. Starting to search for homes in neighborhoods that match your current lifestyle or lifestyle you will be approaching in the near future is a way to be proactive on your needs, so when the perfect home comes along you are ready to take the next steps.
If you are ready to downsize and interested in knowing what your home could sell for in today’s market, give us a call. My team and I are on standby and ready to help you take the smoother road to sold.
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