Ideally we would sell our dc house and buy a two-bedroom condo. But unfortunately the two-bedroom condos seem to cost pretty much the same as our house, so I won’t bother.

My youngest is a high school senior and I can not wait to downsize!
We are hoping my husband (early 50s) finds a job in Florida and then we could buy a 3 bedroom house down there.
I have no visions of "all the kids coming and spending the night at our house for the holidays" because I never wanted to do that when I was a young adult/newlywed/new parent. My MIL expected that all 4 of her grown/married/had babies kids would come for the holidays and just sleep in sleeping bags on the living room floor.

We have a large city house in Dc and beach house currently.

After the kids go to college, we will sell the DC house.

We'll keep the beach house. We might upgrade it between now and then if we can get something larger.

We will add a condo/ coop in Manhattan and add something else. That something else could be all over the place. We've considered something in the Caribbean, a ranch, another condo or coop in a large city.

Waiting until DH retires in a few years since he has a great commute to work right now before making a decision on downsizing. Most of our friends are aging in place.

My parents just moved from their 4 bedroom house in Texas to another 4 bedroom in New Mexico. They are mid-70s and they plan on this being their last move. They had/have no plans to downsize. In fact, their houses have gotten bigger as they have gotten older.

Anonymous wrote:I think this is more of a finance question than a real estate or midlife one, so posting here.
What are you doing with your real estate options when you get to say 55, or when you are empty nesters? Are you downsizing? Moving to a TH? Aging in place? Keeping a larger home for family gatherings, grandkids? What’s your plan?

Plan to move once we retire. No need to move before that.

Anonymous wrote:Based on my parents and their large circle of mid 70s to mid 80s retired professionals, no one really downsizes. They either age in place or eventually sell and move to a retirement/assisted living complex in their mid 80s.

Same with my parents. Aged in place and then moved to assisted living at 88.

The force of inertia likely means we’ll end up just staying. But we’ve always talked about taking the value out of our house and buying a condo at the beach. DH wants somewhere where the external maintenance is taken care of and he doesn’t have to do all the yard work (even with a service, he’s always out there fixing something)

Don’t downsize to a townhouse. Many have over 30 steps. Not good for aging knees.

Age in place. One level ranch.

Based on my parents and their large circle of mid 70s to mid 80s retired professionals, no one really downsizes. They either age in place or eventually sell and move to a retirement/assisted living complex in their mid 80s.

Fully renovated home to be what we have loved and enjoyed while raising our children. They are all out of the house (2 in college 1 employed FT, living on their own in the DMV). No reason to downsize yet. Definitely want to keep the house until at least the youngest is out of college, and probably longer. House is paid off, kids can come home to visit with significant others and there is plenty of space.

Eventually we'll downsize to a "lock it and leave it" type place near one of our kids, but we are not anywhere close to that yet

I want to upsize.

Larger home, still in it. No reason to move, it’s been paid off for decades.

I think this is more of a finance question than a real estate or midlife one, so posting here.
What are you doing with your real estate options when you get to say 55, or when you are empty nesters? Are you downsizing? Moving to a TH? Aging in place? Keeping a larger home for family gatherings, grandkids? What’s your plan?