To down size or not to down size.

I agree with the two bedroom option, even if it is just for yourselves to get some of your "own space" believe me you need it when downsizing, I have disovered that since moving into a bungalow a few years ago, and its "open plan", do not go for that, its hard to have a bit of privacy which we all need sometimes.Good luck, also it is nice to have some male comments too.

Have you had a look at one-bed flats? They can be very cramped....
DH and I are soon to put our 4-bed, 3-recep house with v,large garden on the market : we're downsizing because we have much more space than we really need and because our current place will become much more difficult for us to manage.
But we're looking for a 2 bed 2 recep house or garden flat. We need our own space and I think you may well find that you do too! In addition , outside space is very important for general well-being for us and can function as an extra room, weather permitting. And my DH will most definitely want a man-cave shed.
Your DW might be happier moving to a two BR property, it won't be such a huge change.

A 1 bed flat will be tiny!...we are going to be downsizing from a 4 bed 2.5 bath detached home at some point but into a 3 bed 1.5 bath house or whatever is the best for our budget.
You want to retire - are you mortgage free? Yes downsize by all means but into something you both like

Please don't do it, We did although into small two bed cottage, great untill we retired then we felt really on top of each other, goodness knows how you as a gardener would manage in a flat, even one with small garden, and your poor wife, friends and family are everything and I see her point.
We recently moved to much larger house in cheaper part of
the country, I have new garden and home to plan, dh just potters ,does his hobbies and enjoys the space and peacefulness.
Friends and family visit as there is loads of room now, What BLISS
By the by gransnetters, A grandad is a granny with different appendages or visa versa

Gender fluid Gransnet?

I think you need to choose a good time when your both calm and draw up a list of the pros and cons and see if you can work something out.I can see both sides of this. 1 bedroom sounds good financially,but there would not be a lot of space for and if you did need to sleep separately due to health conditions how would you manage that.Look at property online and see if you could buy a 2 bed within your budget,or could you consider buying a bungalow with a sunroom,as this would give the extra space.Like others have said not knowing what you live in now makes answering a little more difficult. I hope you can work your way around this and both be happy with the result. Good luck.

You do not say how long you have lived in your home and how much emotional investment your wife has in the property.

I am not going to label your wife selfish. We are only hearing your side of the story. I would be interested to hear her side of it.

Personally only the direst necessity would drive me into a one bedroomed flat. Even if I lived alone, let alone married. The older you get the more time you spend indoors with each other. You need space to get away from each other and, as other posters have pointed out, ill health or disturbed sleeping patterns may make 2 bedrooms a necessity.

Have you considered sitting down listening to your wife's reasons for not wanting to move and then taking them into account to negotiate an acceptable compromise?

As others have said, there are other ways to deal with the mortgage. Is it very large? How many years has it to run? Perhaps equity release or an interest only life time mortgage is an alternative. Or how about working part time or your wife getting a part time job.

The previous comments are all relevant but I note hat no one has mentioned the fact that flats come with annual management charges which are reviewed regularly and can end up costing as much per year as a small mortgage. Even if you are on a very limited income there are no benefits payable for management charges.

Also in a flat you never get away from the sounds made by neighbours on your own floor and on the floors above and below you. Can you both live with this?

Be very careful.

Finally I wish you both a very happy and peaceful retirement whatever you decide to do.

Gardenman this really has to be a joint decision. We downsized eventually to a large bungalow which has proved to be such a blessing particularly when DH was in a wheelchair. You need to think very carefully about all kinds of 'possibilities and eventualities' before you choose a property. We haven't needed it so far but there is a B&B near by which is used by many of the locals for their visitors when they have insufficient space. DH would go nuts in a small property as would I and we both like our own space. An assisted living flat like a McCarthy & Stone one would be an entirely different kettle of fish - it is all horses for courses.

Dear Gardenman, It all comes down to what you would be able to afford if you sold the house. Also keeping the house is a better investment than a flat would be. If you had a lodger would that cover the mortgage? Also might your building society consider a remortgage over a long period of time to make the costs less. So you could work part time. Be warned retirement can be very boring.

Do be careful if you do think about re-mortgaging - interest rates could go up again.

There are some quite nice 2 bedroomed apartments near us and some have gardens too, but they are so small, very expensive for what they are and the management fees are very high, so there is a lot to think about.

Thank you all [except cat lover 123] for your sound advise we will stay in our 3 bed house and hope my pat - time job will carry on so we can clear our mortgage in about 9 years.

Perhaps you could purchase a property in an area which would enable you to purchase a larger property.
We moved on retirement to a different area and purchased a property the same size as the one we had and are very happy here.
It is the best thing we have ever done.
Having said that we did lots of research and visited the area many time before making the decision.
Best of luck

Gardenman99 if you enjoy your job and it is part-time and not too strenuous then that is good. Lots of people do retire then are lost for a while and then take up voluntary work anyway.

Someone did say to me that it could cost up to £20,000 to move and that then you may want to spend money on a new place anyway to get it as you want it.

ps we need as many grandads as possible - you are rather few on the ground!

You say you can clear your mortgage in 9 years , is there any way that you could afford a bank loan to pay off the mortgage and then pay the bank loan in a much shorter time . Hope that makes sense. I know what I mean.
Then you could retire sooner.
Definitely don't move to a 1 bed flat . I know someone who did it and then spent the next 5 or 6 years in a tiny rabbit hole ( her words not mine ) and she suffered depression because of it and now they have ended up moving back into a 3bed bungalow at huge expense but much happier

I 'downsized' over 14 years back, from my Edwardian family 5-bedroom house. I live by myself and lots of people suggested going into a flat. However, so pleased I ignored them. Purchased a terraced 1930's 3-bed house. With small bedroom being my home office, meant just a nice-sized double spare room - so one of the first things I had to do there was to have a loft extension, so any of my children living a good way away could come to stay with their children!! Whilst I was working I made this house ready for retirement, getting any major building/alteration work out of the way, and adding a en-suite and a utility room.
The loft room is not used much now, but as access to that is via a staircase built behind what was the old airing cupboard door, I can keep that door closed and virtually pretend it is not there. With the ground floor, being nearly open-plan, I do live in all the rest every day and have a small garden for me, the cat and the to feed the birds. My car lives on the forecourt directly outside my front door, making it easy to use and unload things from. So much better than living in a flat, and plenty of space when people do come to stay for a day or two.

Please think about how you will spend your time after you retire. Do you do everything together or each do your own thing, and what is your own thing?

Do either of you have a skill or handicraft that you enjoy? That will take up space and have tools - a sewing machine, a toolbox and folding workbench, paints and paper - to be stored somewhere when you are not doing it - probably in the spare bedroom.

Do you watch television and do you both like the same kind of thing? Where will you go when your wife is watching Strictly, where will she go when Top Gear is blasting forth yet again?

What if one of you is ill and needs a bed to yourself. Where will the other sleep?

A second bedroom can spend most of its time as a second living room, with a bed that becomes a sofa. In my spare room I have an Ikea sofa/daybed that can become a single or a double bed, and has drawers underneath for storage.

Perhaps all your leisure activities take place outside the house, so you think you will only use the little flat for eating and sleeping, but consider the future when you are less mobile and can't get about as easily and will spend whole days or weeks in the same livingroom getting on each other's nerves.

The reason I posted on here about downsizing was because I knew I would get helpful advise which I have done. Thank you. We have lived in our house for 23 years our kids have grown up and flown the nest from here. I have now put the idea of downsizing into room 101.

101 rooms gardenman; no wonder you need to downsize....

Gardenman99. I hope you will not have to work for too long. Another possibility would be to take in a lodger - say for 1 year initially. Be scrupulous about keeping the rent aside and using it to reduce the mortgage, also hopefully your wife will do as suggested and find some part time work giving you more money to pay it off. . May you soon both enjoy a long and happy retirement together.

Interestingly there is a recent thread, like here, in the Guardian where a husband wants to downsize so he can retire and and the wife does not want to move. Almost everyone there said they should downsize to make the most of the extra cash and freedom from house maintenance (allowing time first to deal with the recent loss of her parents). Here everyone says not to move somewhere small.

I suppose it depends what you are downsizing from and to.

Downsizing from a 5 or 6 bedroomed house with 3 reception rooms/utility etc and several bathrooms to a 3 bedroomed house/bungalow with a garden is one thing, but moving from a 3 bedroomed house with a garden to a one bedroomed flat with no garden could feel claustrophobic.

We have just done the exercise.
Got our quite big bungalow with big garden plus huge hedge valued. Lowest valuation was 100k less than the high east so really no clue what it’s really worth.
We took the lowest guesstimate and looked at what we could move into, nearer shops and smaller etc. By the time we’d finished we decided it will all cost too much for the benefits gained. We are quite near a bus stop here.
We decided we would have to have 2bedrooms and we would go to a b&b when the whole family are here.
Maybe you should actually look at what you can get for your money gardenman next time the question comes up

I don't know whether anyone will HEED my post/rant but,

We have cleared out houses of elderly parents ( exhausting) looked after them, travelled miles to garden, clean and succour them. ( and are still doing it for the ones who are barely alive)
What we have learned is PLEASE PLEASE prepare for your old age. A downstairs toilet and bedroom and no stairs are the minimum requirement.

Our old folks did absolutely nothing to prepare and just sat/still sit in their totally unsuitable houses ( filled with a lifetime of collecting stuff) without a thought for who was going to clear up after them when they were gone/ are gone.

We ourselves are pensioners, with the old folks at one end and children and grandchildren at the other. We hardly have time for ourselves between sorting others' paperwork hospital appointments and emergencies,
We are downsizing from a huge property while we CAN. You need a three bedroomed place with at least one ensuite/ wet room plus bathroom.
You need three bedrooms because ...
one for you and one for your spouse ( if one becomes ill, they will need to sleep separately ) and one for any adult child that comes to help you....you WILL need help. It's unfair to ask a adult child to sleep on a lumpy bed/ Sofa/ bed when they come and help you.
You need to divest yourself of ALL but essential possessions. No one else will care about them and they will end up being skipped or taken to a charity shop. Or even worse stolen by people visiting ( you will become vulnerable)
I speak from experience as my MIL was brought up in a Beautiful Hall with servants and had exquisite stuff, and had absolutely hordes of it. She didn't use half of it and when it came to moving her, my children didn't want unused silver this and that, Meissen China etc or huge dark inlaid furniture. Oil paintings etc.etc and neither did we. Her rings disappeared during various hospital stays.
Same with my parents. They howled when we suggested a skip but they were no longer capable of moving a twig. They should have done it, I was examining gas bills from 1962/boxes of elastic band that had lost their elasticity / hundreds of buttons/ balls of string/ screws kept JUST IN CASE. They could name their dilapidated houses with huge unkept gardens 'we are keeping it JUST IN CASE.'
It was painful and laborious getting rid of their stuff. It caused us to seriously declutter.

Please please get your paper work in immaculate order, make wills and discuss finances/funeral arrangements with your children. Why make things harder for them? It is bloody selfish to think you will live forever.
I am heartily sick of clearing out houses and disposing of possessions and looking for relevant paper work amongst a foot high pile of mess. It is really seriously selfish not to do something before you get so old, someone else has to do it for you.
Rant over

If you do have to declutter after elderly parents die, you can use house clearance firms and burn all but essential paperwork.
Charity shops can make money on silver, Meissen china etc if no-one in the family treasures it.

Did your DH inherit the Beautiful Hall Janeayressister*? And did you inherit your parents' house?

Or did they selfishly leave everything to the dogs' or cats' home?