Sold Our Home and Bought a Townhouse After the Kids Left: Pros, Cons

For my husband and me, the decision to sell our home in Walnut Creek, California, was years in the making.

In our 25 years there, we had raised two daughters, rescued two dogs, hosted neighborhood gatherings, and oversaw three renovations.

In 2022, we took our first step toward letting go by renting out our house when we both got jobs in Los Angeles.

After a year in LA followed by a few months of travel, the pull of family and friends brought us back to Walnut Creek. With our girls launching their own lives across the bay in San Francisco, we knew this was where we wanted to be.

Less clear, however, was whether we wanted to move back into our house. Although it was perfect for a family of four, it felt too big and involved too much work for just the two of us.

Ultimately, we decided to start a new chapter. We sold our house and purchased a modern, move-in-ready townhouse a mile away.

Instead of a four-bedroom, 2,400-square-foot home on a quarter-acre lot, we now have just under 1,600 square feet of living space with three bedrooms and a compact, no-fuss yard.

It’s the ideal size for two people, but big enough to accommodate guests and the girls when they come to visit.

We’re happy where we are today, but I’d be lying if I said it was perfect.

Downsizing has granted us more financial freedom

We bought our first house in 1999, and it has appreciated a lot in 25 years. The selling price in 2024 was 425% higher than what we originally paid for the property.

We’re fortunate to have gotten a low mortgage rate and entered the housing market when we did, plus we’ve done major renovations over the years.

Even after paying the real-estate agent fees, taxes, and what was left of the mortgage, we made enough to buy the townhouse outright.

Since we no longer have a mortgage, we’re able to direct more of our disposable income to things we love, like traveling, hiking, and spending time with friends and family.

Maintaining a smaller, newer, and better-insulated place also costs less. Our utilities are about a third of what they were at the old house.

And although we now pay HOA fees, they cover a lot. We don’t have to worry about replacing the roof, fixing a fence, painting the exterior, or cleaning the gutters.

Compared to the old house with its sprawling, water-guzzling lawn, we spend next to nothing on upkeep of our tiny yard.

Less space means less stuff, and downsizing has been freeing

Moving into a smaller space meant we couldn’t take everything with us. Parting with things we no longer wanted or needed was liberating.

We sold almost all our old furniture, and I donated at least two dozen boxes of books and as many bags of clothes. We made multiple trips to the dump — each haul was charged by weight, a literal reminder of how much we were lightening our load.

Not every cast-off was easy. We debated whether to keep or toss the girls’ art projects saved since preschool, and I hadn’t expected to cry when we parted with a sideboard my husband and I bought when we moved into our first home.

In the end, though, clearing out our house has been a weight lifted.

We’ve enjoyed a more simplified lifestyle

More financial freedom, less space, and fewer possessions may not banish all of life’s worries, but it does simplify things.

Whether it was fixing the gate to our backyard, replacing boards on the front porch, or mulching the garden areas, there was always something siphoning our time and money when we owned a bigger property.

Since our townhouse is newer and so much is covered by our HOA, the only real “projects” we have these days involve decorating.

Simplified living is admittedly subjective — many people love gardening and thrive on home-improvement projects — but that’s not us. Removing those activities has been refreshing.

Although my husband occasionally misses yardwork, I am perfectly happy never setting foot in Home Depot again.

Still, we sometimes worry we’ve given up a valuable asset

Major life changes like downsizing rarely happen without some misgivings. For us, those included walking away from a home filled with cherished memories and giving up our most valuable asset.

My husband was more conflicted about the house than I was — at times eager to post the “For Sale” sign; at other times thinking we should move back in to sell later or pass down to the kids.

I understood my husband’s nostalgia and shared his doubts, but I was more ready to embrace the upside of cashing in, and ultimately, he was too.

We’re grateful for our gains from selling the house, but it’s not something we’re likely to replicate with our current property. The housing market has changed, plus single-family houses are typically more lucrative than townhomes.

Although we generally prefer having a smaller footprint and fewer responsibilities, sometimes we miss all the space and privacy we had before.

In our old house, we hosted big neighborhood gatherings, Thanksgiving feasts, and even a backyard bash for my in-laws’ 50th wedding anniversary.

These would be tough to pull off in our new, smaller home and yard.

And assuming our girls have families of their own someday, we’d love to fit more chairs around the table and have extra space for grandkids to run around.

This may not be our forever home, but it works for now

It’s hard to say if this townhouse will be our forever home.

We’ve certainly worried about the fact that it has two stories, with all the bedrooms on the second floor. Although we have no problem with this today, we might not feel that way 20 years from now or if one of us gets injured.

Any number of mishaps could instantly turn our stairs into a major obstacle — at least our old house was on one level.

For now, though, we’re staying positive and keeping our concerns on the back burner.

We’re still relatively young, and there are too many factors still at play, such as whether our daughters stay in the area, how long we continue working, and what happens in the real-estate market.

For now, stress-free, mortgage-free living suits us just fine. We’ll see what the future holds.