Many people say housing is their biggest monthly expense. Right now, that may be true for me as well, since my mortgage payment alone eats up quite a bit of my paycheck.
The good news is that my husband and I are on track to have our home paid off ahead of retirement. But that doesn’t mean we want to stay put. Here are three reasons we plan to downsize, despite the fact that our home should be ours mortgage-free at that point.
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1. My property taxes are brutal
I live in New Jersey, which is known for a few things — Bruce Springsteen, nice beaches, and some of the worst property taxes in the nation.
I’m not going to share what my property tax bill looks like, but suffice it to say, people from other states gasp when they hear what it is. That’s probably the biggest reason I hope to downsize in retirement.
It’s one thing to pay high property taxes for access to a decent public school system. It’s another thing to pay those taxes when your kids have aged out of the district.
2. I don’t want to spend a fortune on utilities
My house is far from a mansion, but it’s comfortable. One of the things I love about it is my two-story living room, which makes the space feel nice and open.
But that setup also makes my home expensive to heat and cool. And here in New Jersey, we get harsh winters and very hot summers, which can be brutal from a utility bill standpoint.
Even though I’m saving consistently for retirement, there’s only so much money I want to spend on utilities. A smaller home should come with cheaper costs.
3. I don’t want to do the work
There’s a lot that goes into owning a home, from vacuuming to cleaning bathrooms to mowing the lawn to shoveling snow (something my fellow New Jersey residents and I did far too much of this past winter).
I’m willing to put up with that now since we need the space. But in retirement, I don’t expect to need the extra square footage, so I’d rather not have to spend hours each week on maintenance. Plus, as homes age, the amount of maintenance required can increase, and I also don’t want to deal with the expense.
It makes sense for me to have a larger home at this stage of life. In retirement, I feel no need to hang on to a bigger space. I’d rather save the money and spend my time doing things I want to do, which is why I’ve already warned my kids not to get too attached to their childhood home.
