Downsizing. Has anyone done this and any regrets?

[THE_Chris]

Almost no Irish apartments come with lock-ups. Most don't even have bike parking, let alone EV charging and all that stuff.

 

[Blackrock1]

Almost no Irish apartments come with lock-ups. Most don't even have bike parking, let alone EV charging and all that stuff.

i wouldnt say thats accurate, its a minority but not almost none. And if thats a requirement then you exclude ones that dont.

 

[hazelgreen]

I think it is a requirement of new developments to have bike parking but there would be a discouragement of excess parking especially near public transport lines and probably EV not priorty either.

 

[Améile]

I've just become a member- I hit on the “thumbs up” icon in error.

I am so interested- am in my 70’s living alone but need to downsize.
I am taking on board all of contributors views, they will help me make my decision.

I will chat about my circumstances in my next post. Thanks all.

 

[hazelgreen]

I've just become a member- I hit on the “thumbs up” icon in error.

I am so interested- am in my 70’s living alone but need to downsize.
I am taking on board all of contributors views, they will help me make my decision.

I will chat about my circumstances in my next post. Thanks all.

Welcome to the group!

 

[Bronte]

Missed this thread before now and find it fascinating. We are in the middle of downsizing. Here are my insights.

Current situation.

We live in a very large detached house in a green leafy suburb. Four bedrooms, family shower room (shower, sink, wc), master bedroom has bathroom with shower, bath, double sink. Elsewhere is a wc and sink, and one large bedroom has a shower and sink. It's a fabulous sunny house with parking and a garage in a desirable location (think D4). Garden and terrace. We love it. The children love it. To give it up is heartbreaking. So many memories here. But we always knew we must downsize when the children left. 230 Sq2

Health

2 events including an accident has moved us one year forward in the move. It is the right decision at the right age. Before we are too old to move. 70 is too old. We are 50's/60's. The garden is too much, yes we can pay, but we don't want to. I don't want to think about massive renovation of our 25 year old bathoom, the stairs are an issue, and will get worse, the roof tiles need seeing to, the terrace needs redoing, the wooden flooing needs varnishing. I'd also like to paint the place inside and out. It's relentless. We have too much stuff (house is very tidy). We are not quite rattling around with empty bedrooms for when the children, mostly young adults come home. The heating is astronimical as I can't stand the cold. And we just don't want the stress of this any more.

Past Experiences.

My grandparents lived in a city house, and could not get up the stairs, so they confined themselves to downstairs, with no bathoom (no I've no idea) and they had an outside toilet. Effectively they confined themselves to the kitchen and dining/living and one bedroom, so that was their downsize. They could not get up the stairs and lived well into old age. They couldn't afford to renovate or didn't want to and got too old to move. The kitchen was a disaster, clean but awful. They could have done a lot better.

My parent sold a massive house and purchased an ordinary town house, but crucially it had a lovely back garden, they moved into the back of the house and renovated to a one bed ground floor and let the full front of the 3 bed house. Perfect privacy, with loads of neighbours, in a buzzing town but just off the main street. No problem to get the messages, newspapers or socalise and street parking too. A sibling wanted them to buy a 'nice house' out of town and thank goodness they didn't do that. The isolation would have been a killer. This way everybody dropped in and they were minded by many people in the town with loads of relatives dotted about. The heating was on morning noon and night, easy to maintain, cheap to keep, loads of privacy with a side entrance and quiet despite being in a town.

 

[Bronte]

This is very true. For most downsizers buying into an existing development wouldn’t be wise.

However there are some small, very high end new developments like this one where a lot of your neighbours are likely to be of a similar demographic.

The other critical thing is to live in a penthouse. Noisy neighbours upstairs is awful, downstairs much less of a problem

I had a very good look at that. The location is excellent. But I didn't like any of the apartments. There is a distinct lack of storage. Not clear to me about car parking. The main issue I have with them is that they are cleverly designed to show light. But crucially many of the terraces are off the bedooms. The kitchen/dining/living should have been moved to be along the terrace. I bet anything the kitchen area is quite dark. And you do not need day light in bedrooms. (when you are moving into an apartments and making compromises. It's high end and will have high net worth clients, I assume it's solidly built so sound won't be an issue.

There is a lot of discussion on here about apartment living. But you get what you pay for. It's my opinion that many of the apartments built in Ireland were badly built in the scramble to build. That the layouts are not done right and nobody is looking at the wealthy downsizer. We will pay for luxury, convenience and location and will free up our large homes if what we seek is on offer.

 

[Bronte]

We’re in a similar position to Laramie, but we do not intend downsizing. We’ve put too much into the house over the years and our neighbours are good. Why risk moving and having bad new neighbours? Our garden is manageable and in fact has become our favourite place, weather permitting.

Since retiring five years ago we live outside of Ireland (Spain) for six months per year (non consecutive months). We haven’t seen ice or frost or snow and only had little rain and have had loads of sunshine. @Purple called this living the dream and I agree (not often I agree with him). But, we are happy to return to our home in Ireland whenever.

Apartment living in Ireland is not for us; some friends downsized to apartment living and hate it for various reasons.

For the record:- Living in Spain for extended periods is not holidaying. Life is slower, utilities are cheaper, living is not as expensive as in Ireland. We have affordable membership of a health club. I swim in the Med even during December. Eating out is about a third of Irish cost. We watch RTE television nightly, don’t miss any GAA matches. My Spanish is good. We can exercise every day. Next winter we will bring our own car.

I've always loved your posts about Spain. That was our plan too. For the winter. Easy to fly into and out off. Cheap plentiful choices of good apartments. A sunny climate in the winter (and to be avoided in the summer). An easy going life style. Family orientated. And a significent cost of living differential. I assume you rent something like October/Halloween to March/Easter. And come back to Ireland for big events like Christmas. That kind of thing. I assume you take an off season 5 month rental, and store your stuff for the summer. No ownership issues too because you rent. And can move on if the place doesn't meet your expectations. I assume a decent 2 bed. Near the sea. With shops and restaurants nearby. We've done a couple of trips to Benalmadina (not high rise like Torremolinis). It has a nice vibe to it and we stayed in ironically an Irish owned apartment hotel. (well known). So cheap for everything and right on the beach. With a 20 minute taxi ride from Malaga. (You're near Murcia, seen that too I think. Is that airport Alicante. A famous golf resort with high end apartments.

 

[Bronte]

It’s a tricky one. Yes, it could be argued that there’s an element of bravery to moving. But, equally, there are barriers. When you’re young, moving and/or renovating are stressful. That must be amplified when you’re older. Subject to affordability, there’s a lot to be said for getting-in help. A cleaner, a gardener, a handy-man. I like gardening as a form of stress relief and I think that down the line I’d find it tricky to leave nice things that I’m planting and cultivating now. There is also the issue of living in an apartment. It’s a massive leap (and gamble) to move from your own house to an apartment complex.

If you don't mind my saying you were wrong about age in another post. So I think moving while you still can is ideal. Time waits for no man and age comes very quickly.

You can deal with the stress of moving and that is my plan. I'm going to hire a skip, hire a man, and going to pay for movers to box everything up and move us. That's the beauty of having money. We will be delighted not to have to cut the grass or hedges, not to have to sweep the leaves. We have a cleaner and I've hired a gardener to do the hedges etc. But still it's too much.

I'll deal with the leap to apartment from house in another post.

 

[Gordon Gekko]

If you don't mind my saying you were wrong about age in another post. So I think moving while you still can is ideal. Time waits for no man and age comes very quickly.

You can deal with the stress of moving and that is my plan. I'm going to hire a skip, hire a man, and going to pay for movers to box everything up and move us. That's the beauty of having money. We will be delighted not to have to cut the grass or hedges, not to have to sweep the leaves. We have a cleaner and I've hired a gardener to do the hedges etc. But still it's too much.

I'll deal with the leap to apartment from house in another post.

Then why not quote that post?