How to make downsizing pay off: Patsy and Linda say they’ve never looked back.

Most people are reluctant to downsize. It involves change, stress and endless decisions about where to move to and what possessions to keep.

But for 78-year-old retired doctor Patsy Chapman, the decision to downsize from her nine-bedroom manor house in Yorkshire has been one of the best of her life.

She says: ‘I’ve made so many new friends. It’s a bit like going back to university – and every week is freshers’ week. It was overwhelming at first, but you meet people and work out who you like.’

Decisions like Patsy’s to actively choose to downsize are rarer than people may think.

Only 14 per cent of over-55s plan to downsize in retirement, according to a poll by Opinium on behalf of investing platform Hargreaves Lansdown. Meanwhile, half of those polled said they wouldn’t move to a smaller home and the remainder were unsure.

Patsy Chapman says the decision to downsize from her nine-bedroom manor house in Yorkshire has been one of the best of her life

When asked why they wouldn’t consider downsizing, 37 per cent said they didn’t want to move anywhere smaller, and a further third said they were attached to their home.

Cost was another important factor, with 21 per cent saying it was too expensive to move.

But it’s a decision you may have to take sooner than you realise. Research suggests 64 is the optimal age to downsize.

But is this life-changing decision a good idea from a financial standpoint? From stamp duty to the expensive charges that retirement homes levy, Wealth & Personal Finance weighs up the costs of swapping your family home for a smaller property – and speaks to two women who have taken the leap.

Patsy’s smaller home in a retirement village in Buckinghamshire, which she says is much more manageable

It’s a big decision, and can be an emotional wrench

For some who do choose to swap the family home for a smaller property, it can open up a new chapter of life.

Patsy was left alone in her big manor house when her husband Tony, a former surgeon, died aged 79 in 2022. She suffers from macular degeneration, a condition that affects the central part of the retina, resulting in poor eyesight, and she was struggling with their large family home.

Patsy says: ‘I just found I could no longer cope with a nine-­bedroom house. The garden was going downhill fast.’

After discussions with her family, who lived further south, she decided it was time for a change.

In 2024, Patsy sold the house in Yorkshire for £830,000 and downsized to a new home a fraction of the size in a retirement village in Buckinghamshire. She left behind her large house with four acres of land to move to a two-and-a-half-bedroom new-build with a patio.

The move did not release equity, as her new home cost her £815,000, but meant she was moving into a more manageable property closer to her two sons and two grandsons, with help at hand if she needs it.

But that meant saying goodbye to a spacious property full of memories and old friends nearby.

It was difficult leaving her Yorkshire friends behind, says Patsy, but her social life in the retirement village is thriving

The village offers a number of social activities, including quiz nights and cinema screenings

And while the average homeowner over 65 has lived in their property for 26 years, according to Zoopla, Patsy had lived in hers for even longer, at 39 years.

She says: ‘Leaving all my friends behind and parting with so many of my belongings was hard.

‘My husband was a collector of pewter metalwork, so there was an awful lot of clearing out.’

Patsy says she enjoys the social aspect of her new retirement village and finds plenty of time to indulge her love of gardening on her new patio and in allotments.

She says: ‘I have not been lonely or bored since arriving here. They have cinema nights, lectures, quiz nights, even discos. The men tend to play table tennis and petanque, which gets very competitive. We have bridge groups twice a week and that gets competitive, too.’

Make sure you find the right home for you

The first hurdle for many potential downsizers is finding the right next home.

More than a third of homeowners over 55 who considered moving in the last two years but didn’t said a lack of suitable homes was a key reason, according to a poll by property advice website HomeOwners Alliance.

People often focus on the reduced size of prospective properties, or the lack of a private garden, but they should take into account that living in a different type of property may also mean that their lifestyle changes.

Linda Leader, 74, moved to a retirement village in Maidstone, Kent, in 2021 when her husband was ill with leukaemia.

The modern two-bedroom flat was only ten minutes down the road from their old home, a four-bedroom 1960s house. Five…