Right-sizing or downsizing, baby boomers? I'm Brenda K and I'll be right back to
let you know what that's all about.
Hi I'm Brenda K with Brenda K Halifax Home Selling Group. Thank you so
much for tuning in to our blog this week. So what am I talking about?
Well, you know, I'm a baby boomer. I grew up in the 60s
and I did all the things that sixties
and seventies I did all the things you kids can't do now because it's not safe
and I seem to make it through unscathed all right. So why am I telling you I grew
up then, I'm a baby boomer because I think that gives you kind of a sense of
my age. So why do I bring all this up well good reason you know a few years
ago my husband and I we became empty nesters and here we were in this
eleven room house now that's not a big fancy house in the 1980 two-story style.
It just had a lot of rooms, you know, what remember when you used to walk in the
living and dining room, in the family, laundry, kitchen, dining nook.
Crazy but the thing is from a lifestyle point of view I still really enjoy--
I host all the family holiday dinners I love having the children and the spouses
and grandchildren hopefully soon over for the holidays. I love to have open
houses during the Christmas season and have lots of friends and family in.
So see square footage wasn't really our problem.
It was style. You know, and we weren't at the size where we said, "do we want to
downsize," we certainly are nowhere near our golden retirementyears - looking
forward to them but we're not near them yet. So we sat down and we said, "Okay,
well what do we need? What do we use in our house?" and we said, "Well, we use one
room on the main floor we're watching TV and we use the kitchen, of course, in an
eating area and we use a master bedroom, home office, and once in awhile you know
when one of the kids with their spouse's would say over,"
hmm, well that was it. So yeah we counted we said, "We need five rooms and we've got
a eleven?" So we sent about and we said okay we know what we need, we've just
listed the five rooms we need, so let's go shopping for a style
that fits that. And then we said, "Okay, now that was shopping for style what do
we know we have in our house that we don't want?" Okay, number one we had
stairs to the bedrooms, we had stairs to the basement,
we had stairs for the front doors,
we even had stairs from the garage to the main house.
No more stairs. I want a laundry room on the same floors as my bedrooms.
I don't want it on the main floor where I walk up and down to the bedrooms.
All on one floor.
So that's what we did. We went shopping I happen to know a
great realtor and we said, "What style fits us?" Well at this point in our life
a style that fit us was a rancher. We actually did not downsize at all. We
actually right-- we totally right sized. So we purchased a place that when you walk
in you've got my kitchen, my living room, my eating area. Boom.
One big room. We had a
master bedroom with an ensuite. We got a guest bedroom with with a bathroom. I get
a home office. We have all the space we need and believe it or not my husband
loves lawn work. Yes, he does. We call it jigging around. David loves to
jig around out in the yard. So we said, "Well that's another thing. Let's go get
something with a little more space." We loved the days in the suburbs with you
know the kids are playing and riding their bikes and they're playing hockey
in the street but we did that for 25 years so we were past that.
So we said now we know. We want a rancher in an area with a little more space.
So that's exactly what we did and we made that move and it came at the exact
right time in our lives. So you've kind of got that period where you're empty
nesters, you're not quite ready for retirement. There's no way you could get
us into a small condo or apartment. That's just not going to happen. So we
found the exact right size for us at this point in our life. Now I know
there's going to be a day come where I'm not gonna want to cook the big turkey
dinners. I'm not going to want to host all the holiday events at my home. I'm
gonna want to go to one of my children's and be with my grandchildren on that day.
I want to take it easy. There's going to be a day where I'm going to sit
in an apartment, you know, I want to relax, I'm retired,
you know, that day's not here yet and there's a
big space between empty-nester and I'm ready for retirement in an apartment.
I mean in our case we're talking 12 to maybe 15 years between when we bought
our house and and what and when we're ready to downsize. So if you'd like to
talk about right sizing I'm always here and I thank you so much. I love doing the
blogs and videos. There's so much to talk about in real estate and of course being
a baby boomer there's a complete niche out there that if you want to talk about
what you're ready for. If you're a Baby Boomer and say where am I am in my life
what I want to do in real estate I'm here to chat. I'm Brenda K. Thank you so
much. If you like our channel please like, subscribe, and share with friends and
we'll see you on the next blog. I'm Brenda K. Cheers.
you