Further - because it’s easy & cheap to stay in a paid off SFH indefinitely, a lot of retirees do so.
Part of it is inertia and part of it is stuff like “where will the grandkids stay if I moved to a condo”.
Which sure if your monthly costs are near $0 then having 2-3 spare bedrooms sit empty 360 days per year seems sensible.
If they could cash out 50% of their homes value and have same/lower monthlies, then losing some spare bedrooms wouldn’t matter.
Downgrading has to be both easy and cost saving for retirees to do it.
Between my dad and his 3 siblings only 1 has done the downgrade-after-70 thing. And even then that aunt only did so as a gift to her son selling them the family home below market …
Part of it is inertia and part of it is stuff like “where will the grandkids stay if I moved to a condo”.
Which sure if your monthly costs are near $0 then having 2-3 spare bedrooms sit empty 360 days per year seems sensible.
If they could cash out 50% of their homes value and have same/lower monthlies, then losing some spare bedrooms wouldn’t matter.
Downgrading has to be both easy and cost saving for retirees to do it.
Between my dad and his 3 siblings only 1 has done the downgrade-after-70 thing. And even then that aunt only did so as a gift to her son selling them the family home below market …