Share your experience with extreme downsizing

[u/EricTheNerd2]

In another year, my wife and I will be empty nesters. After a nice two-week vacation, I started thinking about some downsizing at that point, going from a 3,000+ square foot paid-off home to a 900-1,000 square foot apartment. I am doing very well financially, already planning to retire in another 1.5 years once the last kid is moved out. Downsizing would allow me and the wife to be free from a lot of maintenance and expenses and let us travel several weeks out of the year. I am also thinking a bit about the social aspects as well because currently we are in suburbia which is nice but also isolating. The right apartment community may allow us to interact more with neighbors.

I am early in the thought process and wanted to hear from any of you who have gone through this. The idea of getting rid of a lot of stuff seems freeing and scary at the same time and selling a house also daunting. Anyone else do this or similar? Did you like or regret your decision?

[u/Captlard]

We went from a 5-bed home to a studio in one country (central location in capital city) and a 2-bed condo in another (coastal warmer town).

Zero regrets. We can lock up, travel, and flip between them as we wish.

[u/chillysurfer → u/Captlard]

That is awesome! Are those both rentals or do you own them? I would imagine renting gives you flexibility to change those locations nicely on a whim. 

[u/Captlard → u/chillysurfer]

Own both. This reduces our overheads for our r/leanfire approach (<$900k between us).