Downsize well and the only way is up
Prise yourself away from that old, familiar home, says PAUL DRURY, and reap the benefits
ON the face of it, the benefits of downsizing to a smaller home are so many and economically advantageous that the big move becomes something of a ‘no-brainer’.
Your new ‘compact and bijou’ address takes much less time to clean, it’s cheaper to run because it’s easier to heat and things such as insurance premiums, council tax bills and mortgage payments are all likely to be lower.
Why, some websites devoted to downsizing even suggest that relationships among family members will improve because you have no spare rooms in which to hide – you have to talk to each other.
These are all fairly obvious advantages of reducing the size of your carbon footprint but they overlook one thing… raw emotion.
For many people, the longer they live in a property, the more attached they become to its little foibles – the floorboards that creak in the same spot, the kitchen door where you marked your children’s height as they grew up.
After decades in the same house, the bricks and mortar begin to course with the blood of those who occupy it. It’s for that reason some well-loved suburban properties in Scotland have been home to as few as three families in 100 years.
Think of football pundit Ian Wright in the Rightmove television commercial, in which he goes round the house kissing the walls, and you begin to appreciate the affection many people have for the place they call home.
However, if you can prise your pursed lips from your front door, the advantages to downsizing do begin to stack up.
We spoke to one elderly lady in the south of Glasgow who has decided to bite the bullet and swap her five-apartment bungalow for a one-bedroom flat in supported accommodation nearby.
Rose – not her real name – has been living on her own for 16 years following the death of her husband, and has no family.
She said: ‘I made the decision myself. I’m in my mid-eighties, so if I don’t move now, I never will.
‘I had been thinking about it for a while. I saw this little flat advertised in my local branch of Corum. I went to see it and bought it almost right away.
‘Then I used the same estate agent to sell my own place.
‘I’m only about a mile away so I can still walk to the same shops and see the same friends – assuming they stay alive!’
She sold her home for £360,000 and paid £115,000 for the flat.
The value of the average pensioner’s house has increased by £11,477 over the past 11 months, according to recent research.
That’s slightly more than the £226.20-a-week pension paid to married couples, which means your house could be earning more than you are.
At an auction of properties held in Glasgow last month, an apartment in Airdrie, Lanarkshire, was offered for the princely guide price of just £1, while a small flat in High Street, Campbeltown, Argyll, sold for only £6,000.
So there are bargains to be had out there if you’re downsizing.
But be warned – that cherished chaise longue of yours may have to go.