Downsizing your home

The ‘forever home’ concept is a trap that many of us fall into. We find a home we love and can’t imagine a time we’ll ever want to leave. Homes are wrapped up with memories and emotions, which can make moving out of a family house seem like an unbearable wrench.

But the reality is that as our lives change, our needs change, and it may make sense to move from a home we’ve loved for one stage of our lives into a home we’ll love for the next.

Retirees Nigel and Christine Philips, aged 71, chose to downsize to be much closer to their loved ones.

After spending the last 40 years in their family home in Wednesfield, Nigel and Christine decided to downsize to a two-bedroom bungalow at our Harvest Grove development last November. After friends of theirs struggled to keep hold of their bigger homes, they knew they didn’t want to fall into a similar position.

The couple’s daughter, who lives in Featherstone with her children, told them about the brand-new housing development going up near her home, and they felt it was a sign that they should consider making a change. The pair fell in love with the Harvest Grove property as soon as they first laid eyes on it and emphasised how much they are enjoying their brand-new home, with Christine commenting “it felt like home from the minute I walked in.”

Free from the growing burden of their larger property, Nigel and Christine have used the move as an opportunity to sort out items accumulated over decades of family life and now get to enjoy a home more suited to their needs, spending special, quality time with their daughter and grandchildren who are now less than a mile away.