The kitchen in the new, downsized home.
A little more than two years ago we sold our 5-bedroom, 4-1/2-bathroom brick colonial Maplewood home. We had lived there more than 10 years after moving from the Upper West Side of Manhattan. While our son was 2 1/2 when we moved, this was the only home that he really remembered. He loved it, we all did. We had great neighbors and a beautiful spot.
We were three people living in that big space and were spending a lot of money on housing. More money than we really wanted to spend. While we had talked about moving, we weren’t seriously looking — and then the right house just showed up. Being in Real Estate, we knew that it could possibly happen one day, especially if we were open to it.
We had always been interested in something more modern, something with more light and open rooms. We found a great 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom place in South Orange that had been owned by a family who moved out over a year prior. It’s a ranch that had sustained some damage from Sandy and really needed vision for a buyer to fall in love. The minute I walked in I knew that I could see us living there happily.
So we made our offer and when it was accepted some members of my family had some difficulty with the decision. It was emotional as you can imagine and the notion of “downsizing” also required some soul searching. Moving to a less expensive home can bring up some issues and cause you to look at what really matters to you.
Moving allowed us to spend close to $30,000 a year less on housing before even considering the difference in operating expenses. What appeared to be a material downgrade felt so much like a spiritual upgrade. We freed up a lot of money that we could use to save for college, retirement, to spend on fun things and give to organizations we support. And it also gave us money for some renovations including our kitchen. We now have a beautiful, open, contemporary space that we love to call home. For us, it was definitely the right move and one of the best decisions we ever made!
I recently spoke with two other people whose families moved from larger and more expensive Maplewood homes to smaller ones. Like us, when they purchased their needs were different, or they thought they would be different, than they actually were when they sold. Also like us, their taxes had increased putting them in a situation where they wanted to spend less on housing. The most interesting thing to me was, that also like us, they both like living in their new home better than their former larger one.
Similarly they said that they were saving somewhere in the neighborhood of $20,000 annually and in one case they were now mortgage free and had the ability to renovate their new place to really create a space they loved. Another got a much bigger backyard and as people who love to garden, they appreciated that.
So here are the benefits in a nutshell:
- Lower housing costs. All of us realized a savings of between $19,000-30,000 annually. This came from things like reduced mortgages, reduced taxes, lower utility bills and lower maintenance bills.
- More disposable income for vacations and other fun things that enhance our life and create memories, also more money for saving and giving.
- Easier maintenance. Smaller house mean less upkeep.
- In two out of three of the situations, selling a more expensive place gave us the ability to have money to renovate and create the space we wanted.
- We all prefer our new homes.
So, could downsizing your home upgrade your life?
Randy Rabney is a member of the Lichtman-Rabney Team at Keller Williams Mid-Town Direct Realty and the author of “The Light at the End of the Tunnel…How A Family of Native New Yorkers Found Happiness in NJ and How You Can Too”. Lichtman and Rabney are local residents and top producing, caring agents who bring their skills as a former Sr. VP of International Sales and Marketing at a Fortune 500 company and a former Manhattan Attorney to every Real Estate transaction. You can read what people say about working with them here.
