Our bid was accepted this am on my tiny retirement house.
Been looking for months. I fell in love with this one at first sight. Took husband considerably longer. He would never downsize except I convinced him finally that property taxes made it impossible for us to retire in our home of 35 years!
Our tiny house is almost 80 years old but has all new systems. Roof, kitchen bath, etc.
And a rocking chair 3 season porch.
Now if we can sell our well loved but imperfect old house, life would be perfect.
@musicmom, shhhhhh, I don’t want my husband to hear that and remind me our property taxes are too high. He has complained about high taxes our entire marriage (that and health insurance) and our taxes now are more than double what he complained about in the 90s! I hope to afford my taxes for at least another 10-15 years.
Congrats, @musicmom! Hope the house behaves for quite a while.
We are working on making our digs “newer” so we can last in them for a few years. I realized that without 24/7 access to outdoor space (like in San Diego or HI), we probably need the indoor space we have.
Property taxes are one of our prime motivations for moving. Our near-in NYC suburb has ridiculous property taxes that support our amazing school system. When we moved out of NYC over 33 years ago it was because our taxes were less than private school tuition would have been for multiple kids (for us, NYC public schools back then were not even an option) but now that our kids are grown, it’s a bit of a burden. I think I no longer want to own property…renting sounds wonderful right now as we face the spring clean up.
I can’t believe the difference in property taxes between the states in the Northeast and taxes in southern locations. I mean, we all understand that the NE has more infrastructure and has significant infrastructure needs, the tax burden is tremendous for many reitirees.
We have really high property taxes where I live (North Texas). We don’t have state income tax, though. According to Investipedia, the average property tax rate in the US is 1.21% of assessed value. We pay almost 2.3% of our assessed value, which has gone up significantly in the five years we have owned our home.
County and local taxes are high here but it’s the school tax that puts us in the stratosphere, tax-wise. Our community receives very little of our state taxes back in the way of state funding for our schools, so the village school taxes cover the shortfall. On that front I can’t complain because our children received a phenomenal education that has served them well, but without kids it’s hard to justify that outlay every year. We’re just starting the serious downsizing discussion, but I suspect it will occur in the next 24 months.
@runnersmom Think of it this way…there were likely many taxpayers in your community who didn’t have kids in the schools when YOUR kids were in the schools…and their taxes helped support the schools.
We don’t have kids in our fine public school district either…and haven’t for well over 10 years. We still strongly support our schools…education is Important…and at the end of the day…our excellent schools will be a selling point when we finally DO decide to sell.
Runnersmom - if you are a renter in a high property tax but popular location, you will be paying those high property taxes one way or another. The landlords are hiking their rents across the board here because they can. They will be doing this to pass a big chunk of the recent 30% increase in tax onto their renters. And there is no lack of folks looking for apartments here…
Agreed, and we have been funding our wonderful schools for almost 11 years now since our youngest graduated from high school. I was (and still am in some ways) very involved in our schools and have been happy to support them. And I know our home’s value is tied directly to the quality of those schools, as it was when we bought it 25 years ago, However, there comes a time when two people no longer need a large family home and can make better use of those funds. @BunsenBurner, I know we will pay a hefty premium to rent in NYC, not because of property taxes but because, well, NYC, but I could pay close to a year’s rent (a hefty rent) for what I pay in real estate taxes (which I couldn’t deduct before because of AMT and which I can’t deduct now because of AMT and the tax deduction limitation). And we still have the other costs of home ownership (not including a mortgage, which we no longer have) to contend with monthly. I love our home and our community - it was a wonderful place to raise a family, but our goals and needs are different now.
Here are the 10 best and the 10 worst by the following criteria:
“…WalletHub compared the retirement-friendliness of all 50 states using criteria such as cost of living, crime rate, tax-friendliness on pensions and Social Security income, number of health-care facilities, access to public transportation as well as the weather and proximity to golf courses and museums.”
And this right here is the risk of renting when you are retired and on a fixed income. You are lucky they even gave you a choice about paying a higher rent vs. just kicking you out, and even luckier they had something else in the same building. Imagine if you were 80 and facing being forced to move or face a huge rent increase, or even because the owner just wants the apartment for a relative, or wants to convert it to a condo.
I can’t imagine being in a 1br, DW and I need our own spaces.
I’m not a huge fan of apartment-style condos either, unless maybe it was on the top floor. I hate being able to hear people walking (thumping! stomping! running!) above me. And there is a considerable risk of having the Condo Gestapo making your life miserable for every perceived infraction of a bunch of dumb rules. I can see the appeal of just paying a condo fee every month and not having to worry about any outside maintenance though.
We will downsize in the next few years to a 3br house with waterfront and a dock on Cape Cod. We are renovating now and when done will be able to live on one level if necessary. Taxes will be much cheaper than our current house. It’s a great property and hopefully it can stay in the family even after we are gone.
I have a friend whose family owns a beautiful piece of oceanfront in upstate Maine that was built by his grandfather. At his generation there are seven cousins who now share ownership, and it is causing some real problems as some of them aren’t interested in paying their share of the expenses and upkeep.
@runnersmom, I think it’s a great idea to downsize and rent in NYC. Lots of people in high property tax areas like NJ and some counties in NY sell their houses when their kids finish local schoola. It opens up housing inventory for younger families whose children can use the school system.Selling one’s house and renting can cash out a lot of money to use in retirement rather than having it tied up in a house.
It’s not for everyone but it does make sense for some.
We downsized/moved OOS almost 6 years ago (time flies).
Check with your school district for a piano- ours hauled away our upright; difficult to sell…
post # 12- Florida as your main residence means no state income tax. Our Tampa neighbors spend their summers in hometown upstate NY. Consider the finances.
We hoped to have more than one kid and had Indian inlaws to accommodate for weeks at a time so we built large back in the day. We still wanted a yard (the gardener in me, although heat and soil are bummers here) so a single house. Found to get in a nice neighborhood size was a bit bigger than we thought we wanted. Single story. Need more space when there is no basement for stuff. We do put our cars in the garage- so many people use theirs for storage.
Years ago I figured if it were just me I would want a three bedroom home- one for a bedroom, one a study and one a guest room. Here the two of us share the master, use the smallest bedroom/study as a guest room (a queen bed fits) and we each get our own space as a study/computer room. The house came with nice views (pond/woods) and the living/family, dining/dinette rooms. Our next downsize will be half the rooms/space. But is sure is nice to be able to be in different rooms- separate and also to change environments.
If more than one person/couple comes at the same time we drag out the queen/twin extra high air mattresses. Life sure is different when not having others live with you. We ended up with a large kitchen- nice to have when two people are both making their meal at the same time (we are much more casual about meals than when raising a child).
Space matters. When you retire you no longer have the workplace included in where you spend a lot of time. Nice to have variety in your home. Also nice for couples to be apart.
Stuff. We culled so many books- decreased numbers of bookshelves. Recently I went through stuff saved and culled some more- five years later you know what you do/do not use. Will be wearing outdated clothing if we need to go up north some winter (father’s funeral, otherwise have become warm weather visitors only- up north definition, not Florida). It was refreshing to be able to get rid of a lot of decades old stuff, including furniture. Ages and stages.
Definite pros to downsizing and getting rid of stuff in the process. Cons are going too small for your comfort. A couple needs space for being apart when retired and home more often. Kids have their own lives and no need for space for them, not like returning home during college.
I designed my parents’ retirement house. My biggest regret as a visitor with babies was that I made the guest rooms too small! There was barely room for a port-a-crib in them. There were quite a few holidays with all the kids and grandkids and it was nice that we all fit. Later they downsized more and with older kids staying in the local inn or with my brother in his big house worked well.
Our next door neighbors just sold their home with the same floor plan as ours. The sales price is the highest on our street since pre-recession. They are buying a house in Mexico (lifestyle change, not downsizing) and also have a home in NorCal where they will split time. This has prompted DH and me to consider downsizing to a 2-3 bedroom 2000 sf home sooner than later. We love the area in which we live but the house is too big considering we want to split time between two places, as well.
One of the obvious cons of downsizing is hitting us in the face right now. We’ve loved living in our comfortable old home for 30 years, great neighbors. Great schools, walkable town.
But boy, didn’t realize how much work it takes to prep an old home for sale. The structure and systems are fine I think but cosmetically it’s kind of a mess. Too busy working and raising kids to care much about repainting, pulling up that ugly burnt orange carpet, etc.
We’re certainly not reaching for HGTV level staging but tattered wallpaper that we kinda didn’t even see anymore has got to go.
Hope to sell before new house (in review) closes. Wish us luck, think we need some!
