<p>Arizona has super tax rates for the retired set…if I recall correctly after a certain age your property tax gets frozen.</p>
<p>We have 1900 sq ft and a naturscaped yard… 3 bathrooms and the ability to live on one floor if we need to. We are not moving anywhere!</p>
<p>Good point musica.
We can currently walk ( within a mile) to a hospital, multiple grocery stores, restaurants & shops, library etc.
Plus considering how hilly Seattle is, heading toward the denser part of our neighborhood, is flat!
We didnt pick our house 30 yrs ago with retirement in mind, it was going to be our starter house. 
But life intervened as it often does, and we have become fairly entrenched into the community especially with several neighbors on our street who are friends, although we also have ties to the college community where D attends and have friends who have retired there- in the much smaller town.
I think it will come down to whether I can give up my yard now that it is almost how I want it.
I would never be able to do the same amount of the initial work again, and since I have mature plantings, even if I hired someone, it wouldnt be the same.</p>
<p>I don’t really want less space so much at different space. I would like to be on one floor, with maybe a couple of bedrooms up, maybe a story and 1/2. I would like to be with in walking distance of shops, restaurants, etc.</p>
<p>srw: exactly. Us too. A different space in a different part of the country…near water(maybe a lake) and more access to city life. We are in a very small NE town now and actually want to be more near larger cities. With more going on. More choices of shops, restaurants, culture. Our home is 3,000 square feet and our Master is on the main floor, which is great for re-sale. But I’m so over the small town atmosphere and need a change! 
We need to sit tight a few more years, but have slowly begun the purging process, which will take awhile (!)</p>
<p>We’re thinking of downsizing. Yard and home is too big for just the two of us. We’ve been finding that we enjoy the small size of our vacation home…quick to clean and low maintenance. </p>
<p>We went looking at smaller homes over the weekend and are leaning towards something around 1500 square feet (3BR, 2 1/2 BA). As long as it has at least 2 bathrooms, a good-sized great room with open kitchen, and a laundry room, I’m happy. :)</p>
<p>We didn’t downsize on purpose but a job relocation took us from 2800 sq. ft (4 bed, 3 1/2 bath) to 800 sq. ft. (2 bed, 2 bath apt). I am finding that the space is quite fine for the 2 of us, but I would like some extra storage space. I really don’t miss the yard as I’ve never been a yard person. We always paid for a gardener. I wasn’t sure that I’d like being back in an apartment, but it is an end unit and very well insulated. We can’t hear our neighbors at all. </p>
<p>If and when we decide to buy another house - I’m thinking 3 bed, 2 bath and very small yard. Probably about 1200-1500 sq ft. Plenty big for us.</p>
<p>We’ll never sell our primary home. But then we never “upsized” when all our friends were moving into big homes so we stayed downsized…including 2 boys sharing a bedroom until I gave up my office space. We’ve downsized the family living in our home for now but don’t plan on downsizing even more into a different home. My sib went from 5,000 square feet to 900 square feet…now that is downsizing in retirement.</p>
<p>We love our 2600 sq ft house…that has an additional 1000 sq ft finished walkout basement. We are in a nice neighborhood, with a nice lake. People come in this direction to vacation.</p>
<p>BUT while some of you think 2500 sq ft isn’t big, we think it’s TOO big. We have a LR, DR, FR, K with BR, 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths…and then the finished downstairs too. </p>
<p>When we move, we hope to eliminate the DR and LR and go more for a great room type of living space (frankly, we do all of our living in the kitchen/breakfast room/family room anyway). We will probably downsize to 3 bedrooms. And we certainly will NOT have 2 acres of land!</p>
<p>Re: being inlaws and having family come home…my inlaws had a 3 bedroom house with a loft…2 baths. It got to the point when we all had kids (6 families) that it was impossible for all of us to stay with them. They would have needed a 6 or 7 bedroom house for that…and 6 or more bathrooms. There was a nice Holiday Inn Express nearby…and we started staying there. We would get to their house for breakfast, and stay until bedtime everyday we visited (only did this when multiple families were visiting). It saved a LOT of stress too. </p>
<p>So I’m hoping my next new place will be near a nice B and B.</p>
<p>I would love to move to a different State and downsize if I could just talk my husband into it. He is a hoarder and we would have to get rid of a LOT of stuff. I would love to live near the ocean and a 2 bedroom condo would be just fine for me. I’d happily leave get rid of the majority of our “stuff” and just start fresh and minimalist. (when he was being treated at M D Anderson last year, we rented a one bedroom apartment near the hospital for 6 months. I loved it - no clutter and easy to take care of. Our little cat seemed very happy and content in the small place as well). </p>
<p>His old boss downsized and moved into a really cool condo - his wife is very arty and they had the place done to look like a sort of warehouse loft studio. It is really cool, but I don’t think I’m tidy enough t have everything on display like that.</p>
<p>We downsized from a 2200 sq. foot house (4 br,2.5 baths w/ all bedrooms and full baths upstairs. We built a new house with retirement in mind. New house is 1680 sq. ft. It has 3 br. and 2 full baths all on one floor. I love not having to trudge up and down the stairs all the time. We have one big living space rather than separate living/dining/kitchen areas.
We purged sooo much stuff when we sold our old house. Having a smaller house forces you to not collect a bunch of “stuff” that you never use.</p>
<p>We downsized from two acres, six bedrooms and 3,500 square feet to one acre (of much much more useable land), four bedrooms and 2,400 square feet. Only five miles away from the other house, so our children have a reason to come visit. Some of our friends have told us we suck at downsizing, but I truly feel that we’ve “right-sized.” By making this move, we got rid of our mortgage.</p>
<p>Oh yes…no mortgage would have to be part of the downsize deal. Guess that means no Manhattan or Boston!</p>
<p>Our house is way too big for us now, and the cost of maintenance and repairs, heating and cooling, etc. are burdensome. But we also have a lot of work to do on it before it can be marketed, and not enough available money to get them all done at once, so the plan is to sell business first, then use some of the proceeds to fix up the house. My ideal downsize would be a three bedroom condo (never want responsibility for a yard or major repairs again, but want two guest rooms for sure) in a nice city with very good public transportation–it’s inevitable that at some point we won’t be qualified to drive, and I don’t want to be stuck in a suburb dependent on the kindness of others to get out of the house. I’m something of a minimalist and love to throw stuff away, so the downsizing purge will be the best part!</p>
<p>Our home is 3,500 sq ft on a half-way decent lot. It is on two floors, so it will eventually be too much for us. My mom moved from it when she was 64 and we bought it. It’s served us well and as it will be paid off by retirement, we probably won’t sell for some time. After my mom dies at the earliest (mom has trouble letting go).</p>
<p>Current plans are a 5th wheel for US travel and a trip a year to Europe. I have to admit that a condo in a city neighborhood would be nice.</p>
<p>The most important thing for retirement is being close to quality health care options. I’ve known too many people who had to move from beloved retirement locales because the doctor/hospital/oncologist was too far away.</p>
<p>Agree its important to be near good healthcare–good transit too if you can get it. That is one of many reasons I could never move just anywhere. Honolulu doesn’t have the best medical care, but its mostly pretty decent.</p>
<p>When downsizing from my 2900 square foot, 4 bedroom, 3 bath house I was looking to:</p>
<p>1) get away from so much yard maintenance, with the pool, lawn, and outdoor kitchen
2) have less extra rooms like the exercise room and the formal living room
3) get rid of the mortgage, and put money in the bank.</p>
<p>Then I looked at what I wanted:</p>
<p>1) a wonderful view
2) 3 bedrooms, 3 bath so my college daughter would still have her room and I’d have a guest room.
3) a place for my 7’ round dining table
4) a place for hubbies hide away from the world man cave.</p>
<p>In some ways I failed miserably, as I downsized to a 6000 square foot 5 bedroom 6 bath home, with a family room, diningroom, keeping room, library, game room, and man cave basement. However, I have my view of a lovely pond and a signature golf course hole. The yard is much bigger, but less maintenance. I did get rid of the mortgage and put a ton of money in the bank. </p>
<p>Hubby says in 7 years we’ll probably need to downsize again, but for now, this is my dream home.</p>
<p>Well it’s another glorious day here in downsized paradise and I already have the entire house vacuumed and dusted and the porches swept. And lunch underway.</p>
<p>We moved into our home 11 years ago. It was small, around 1400 sq. ft. with a full unfinished basement, two baths and an attached two car garage (built in 1959). I knew at the time by the time I could afford to upgrade it would become unnecessary and that has ended up being the case. I find it interesting that those we talk with interested in downsizing are often looking at the size of house we have. We did remodel the kitchen with the idea that sometime we could put a washer and dryer at one end of the kitchen eliminating the need to go to the basement. Our next project will be remodelling the master bath to get rid of the tub and replace it with a shower with little step over. I have a D HS’13 in college as a freshman and a second D HS’16 who will be with us a few more years. I figure the small house might dissuade them from coming home (to stay) after graduation and once they’re gone it will feel much larger.</p>
<p>Question for those in basement land:</p>
<p>In watching HGTV, they often will talk about homes with X number of square feet, “plus a large finished basement.” Why do they not include finished basement square feet into the total official square foot assessment?</p>