What If I Downsize My Home?

Selling the big house and moving somewhere smaller does two things for your plan: it frees up a chunk of cash, and it usually lowers your ongoing costs. RetireRange can model both.

New here? Build a baseline plan first with Getting Started.

The quick version

1. Add your home as a property with a planned sale, and lower your spending from that point.
2. Save it as a named strategy — "Downsize 2035."
3. Run Comparison against your baseline to see how the windfall and the lower costs change your odds.

Step by step

1. Model the sale. Save a scenario ("Downsize 2035") and add your home as a property: set its value and a sale date, and enter the net proceeds you’d actually walk away with (the cash freed up after buying the smaller place and paying costs). Point the proceeds at the account that should receive them — usually a taxable account. RetireRange deposits that lump sum there when the sale happens. (If the home produces no rental income, just leave the rental income at zero.)

Enter the cash you free up — not the sale price. This is the number people most often get wrong. If you’re buying another place, only what’s left after that purchase (plus realtor and closing costs and any remaining mortgage payoff) actually reaches your portfolio. Sell a $600,000 home to buy a $400,000 one and, after costs, you might free up roughly $150,000 — not $600,000. Entering the full sale price would badly overstate the windfall and flatter your odds. Downsizing to little or no replacement cost? Then the net is most of the sale price — but still net of selling costs.

2. Lower your spending. A smaller home usually means lower upkeep, taxes, and utilities — reflect that by reducing your spending target from the move onward (the spending phases feature is handy for a step-down at a specific age).

3. Save it as a named strategy (the Strategies button) — "Downsize 2035." It captures both the property/sale and the lower spending, and re-runs against your current baseline.

4. Run Comparison on the Compare tab; with Compare against baseline on (the default), your baseline is drawn automatically beside the downsized version. Load Baseline (⤺) returns you to your plan.

What to look at

• Success Rate — the combined lift from the cash injection and lower ongoing spending often moves it more than people expect.
• The trajectory at the sale year — watch the portfolio step up when the proceeds land.
• The timing trade-off — try selling earlier vs. later; proceeds that arrive sooner have more years to support the plan, but you may not want to move yet.

A couple of notes

• Enter net proceeds in today’s dollars — what’s left after the replacement home and transaction costs. RetireRange scales it for inflation to the sale year.
• This models the financial mechanics of downsizing. It doesn’t capture the personal side of the decision — only you can weigh that.