Should we downsize to help our adult children out?

Only consider it if you think you need a smaller place to make your life easier. I assume your partner is still with you as you say we? What does he think? I downsized as I was alone in a hard to manage house. Best decision I ever made but I am enjoying the equity not handing it over to children. They didn’t expect it and I am sure yours don’t either.

You say “I love my house though, and the thought of moving scares me rather than excites me - ( I’m 63 ) plus our area is great for transport, shopping, doctors etc.”

Then stay put.

Thank you everyone for all your comments - really appreciate your advice.

Whilst not in a position to do so as I am renting s/h.I have an inheritance due which i will leave to my daughter who has to pay a very high rent for a "box".We all want to help our kids but I notice many still want nails done lots of socialising and are not too keen on going without instead relying on parents.Also its so unfair mostly it seems now only if mum and dad own can their children buy with their help so the poor and renters are.left out.I worked hard for what I have and I think somewhere that idea seems to have been lost.Entitled comes to mind.Anyway I would stay put and enjoy your money.

Well, I am in a minority here - but happy to be so. We sold our Greater London semi just after Covid, to help our two children buy houses. My parents helped us buy our first property and we wanted to do the same for our children. We had been living in the same property for 33 years and were 71 and 77 when we moved.. The sorting out of sheds etc was challenging - but cathartic. We moved over a hundred miles to a lovely area.. We are realistic about the future thought long and hard about what we wanted - and have ended up in a much nicer - and bigger - house which is pretty future-proof and close to amenities. We are fortunate in that we are currently in excellent health and, in fact, feel that the move has been stimulating. We have made friends and are enjoying life. We were delighted to be able to help our children and feel that we haven’t missed out in the process. This just goes to show that everyone is different.

Gran22boys

Do it while you’re alive and you’ll see the pleasure it brings. We did.

Why would you do that? your children are grown ups and need to learn to fend for themselves. If you keep bailing them out they will never learn to manage within budget. I would never ever consider this. Enjoy your hard earned cash whilst you can. My husband retired at 72 and within a couple of years had a massive stroke that paralysed him completely so he was permanently in a wheelchair until he died. We needed that money to keep our own roof over our heads as I had to give up work to look after him 24/7 full time. Never ever would I consider doing that, particulatly at OP's age.

Are you happy in your house space wise. Could you do wit less house work cleaning decoarating etc Smaller bills for energy
Go on more holidays if you hadspare money to do so
we have upsized and down sized since we got married 48 years ago
Have been able to assist our children in times of need
Now we are in a Appartment with a large balcony two beds and love it We go away when it suits us and can have grandchildren over to sleep in spare bedroom
Can walk into town to the shops take the train to london and up north on the main line easily Suits us fine We have also got an alloment in the nearby village we lived in 25 years ago so life is good
Get rid of your expensive property and use the money to enjoy your lives and share with the family whilst they are in need !!! Will make you feel good am sure if you are having these doubts Share your good fortune due to the property market going crazy over the last twenty plus years x

You should consider setting up a trust fund for your house. At the moment of either of you had to go in to care when you are older there would be a charge made against your home until the other one died and there would absolutely nothing to leave to your kids. You have to do this while you are both in good health (no life limiting conditions). The way it was explained to us is as a married couple we didn't own half the house each we both owned all of it as far as the government is concerned. So if one of us needed care there would be a charge against the whole property and as we all know a care home with extortionist charges would soon eat through the equity in your home. With a trust fund each others share would be preserved. so if one of you ended up in care only that persons share of the house could be taken into consideration and if the other lived long enough without ending up in care their share could be left in a will to their children or whoever they wanted. This was explained to us by a paralegal who was doing wills for a donation to the Air Ambulance charity. There are two options for all of your house or half of it. It costs quite a bit to set this up but worth it if you want to leave anything to your kids. Of course if you both end up in care then you will be no better off. Definitley worth looking in to.

You do not know what the future holds. You are still relatively young and not yet retired, so you may actually need the money yourself, given the way that state pensions are going, these days.

But you are old enough to think about what you want out of your retirement. My MIL sold up in Richmond and moved to Cambridge where she had all of the same facilities for far less, and then to Ely because she had made friends there. Each time she released a little equity to enhance her pension - being single, her income was less than a couple - which happens to far more women than men. Do get a pension quotation to check if you have not already done so - could you manage on just your income?
This may influence any decision.

Then look at your lifestyle, are you heavily invested in your community? is your family close by? or would you like to move to a smaller town, or perhaps by the sea?
Then look at the housing market, remembering the cost of moving, to see if downsizing to your chosen/current location is worth the effort.
Would the amount you can release be worth the change for the children anyway? (I live in a small town, with many Londoners, in walking distance of everything, with plenty to do, 1hr from Kings X, my 4 bed modern bungalow is worth only about £300K). Research is vital.

My single son had been renting in Birmingham for years. He had some very dodgy landlords which we were both unhappy about. When he started Working From Home I suggested he choose somewhere safer and nicer to live and go house hunting and I would give him the deposit. He bought a new build semi in a lovely area and absolutely loves it. I am very happy too because he is much, much happier.

P.S. I moved abroad and bought a small apartment

Kandinsky - you're in a great position and not yet at retirement age so I guess you're in reasonable health. All the things you mention about the location are worth a lot as you age so I wouldn't be thinking about downsizing just because if you did you would experience the 'cash rich' label that many people who are not really affluent acquire as a result of early choices about location.

The big question is do you earn money, are you fit, could you ever reproduce what you have - and the answer is no you can't. You've already said the garden is an important part of the accommodation for you. But you do have three bedrooms and I'm guessing that you live in Greater London. Before I moved out of London I knew many people near me who were advertising a bedroom on a nightly basis at prices of no less than £100 a night and often more.

You have a resource and you could use that to make a small income - you could fund that over a couple of years and especially if you have savings or earn in other ways, to expand your house via a loft conversion that would enable you to take a lodger maybe, or invite your son back home. There are organisations that look for bedrooms for foreign students on short courses here and they pay handsomely. There are numerous ways to make money even when you want to remain living in your property.

I don't agree with giving up your own comfort when you can't reproduce it just at the time of your life when you need it but I also find it difficult to listen to people who talk about it being 'their turn' when their adult children are 'off their hands'. Those adult children didn't ask to be born and were probably conceived to 'enrich' their parents' lives.

If I live in Greater London and has a house worth 800k with no mortgage and can find a £300k 4 bedroom bungalow, 1 hour from King Cross and within walking distance to everything similar to FranP’s, I will move. Give each AC £100k and keep the rest.

It all depends on your circumstances though, you are only 63, can you afford to move before state pension age or do you need to keep working until 67?

I have given my daughter a generous sum of money but luckily, we did not have to downsize.

At that time, she has just bought a 1930s 3 bedroom semi-detached house with her partner in East Midlands without our help and then her employer told her that she will be made redundant in a few months time.

It might be a good idea for some, but for me personally I can't be doing that. My sons, both middle aged men, have made their own way and are settled and wouldn't want me to move just to suit them. I'm too ancient to move house now anyway.
Life is a struggle for many young couples these days and it seems a nice idea to help if you can.

At 63 you are still young , you need to look after yourself first . Hopefully you will have a long healthy happy retirement ahead of you.
You are too young to think about downsizing yet !.
Put yourselves first.

I’m in the stay put group. This was seriously considered here but a couple of years after the decision was made life took a huge health sea change which we never ever saw coming and the existing house was perfect to accommodate the issues and still is. A downsized property would have been impossible to live in.

You need to think of your own old age. You won't be 63 forever and nothing is written in stone. Your children are still young enough to make a life for themselves and that is what they should be doing. Why is it down to you to supply them with extra funds? Stay in your house, enjoy it for as long as you can and when you can't anymore, see how you can best provide for your own future. Your children have choices.

63 is hardly old - you could have to provide for yourself for decades yet! You may need to move into specialised or sheltered accommodation at some point - that will cost. Downsizing for your own comfort is one thing- but 63 seems young to me.