Rightsizing towards luxury apartment living is gaining pace among the over 55s.

Written by Sue Williams | www.afr.com

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It’s not so much upsizing or downsizing; it’s rightsizing that’s the big trend in the residential property market – and suddenly it seems it’s happening everywhere.

It was ultimately the sheer drudgery of having to clean and maintain a big fivebedroom family house that did it for Jenny Viglianti and her husband Frank.

They had loved their home, having brought up their three daughters there and now often having a selection of their 11 grandchildren to stay. But finally , enough was enough.

“For years, I was getting fed up with all the housework it involved,” says Jenny, a retired nurse consultant. “It was just the size of the house. And we agreed it was time for us.”

Time, that was, to rightsize: the trend that’s now seizing everyone’s imagination.

For Jenny, 67, and Frank, 69, a retired business manager, it meant selling their house in Concord in March and moving into a large two-bedroom apartment in Breakfast Point in May. And they’ve never been happier.

“I love apartment living, I absolutely love it!” says Jenny. “We were so ready for it and knew it was the right thing to do. Our children had gone, and we found we weren’t entertaining like we used to.

“We got rid of all our old furniture and bought all new and cleared out so much of the stuff you accumulate when you have a big house.

“It felt absolutely cleansing to do that. Now, while we only have two bedrooms, we have a big balcony where we can entertain, a great vista, and every lounge in the apartment is a sofa bed for anyone who wants to stay. A lot of people tell us we are so brave to have done that and that they never could, but we now have so much more time to enjoy ourselves and travel instead of looking after the house. It’s really lovely.”

Jenny and Frank are just two of the 8000 people who rightsized in the past 12 months, while currently, one in eight Australians –or more than 600,000 households – are planning to rightsize in the next year, according to research from comparison website Finder.

Then there are the 1.6 million households, on figures from Digital Finance Analytics, that are considering the same move over the next five years.

“People are getting tired of maintaining big family homes and looking after the pools and doing all the gardening and all the expenses a large property entails,” says Aaron Bassin, chief executive of Bridgit, which provides bridging loans to rightsizers. “With an increasing number of Baby Boomers [becoming empty-nesters ] and an ageing population, it means a lot of older people are now downsizing, while young families are looking at upsizing, and everyone’s thinking about rightsizing.”

When the pandemic forced us all to spend more time in our homes than ever before, many people simply realised that their homes were no longer suited to their needs or stage of life.

Some empty-nester were finding themselves rattling around in big homes; some families with young children were squeezed into toosmall spaces, and some couples and singles found they were either paying too much for space they weren’t using or desperately needed an extra area to work from home.

Making a new home work for new circumstances is something that celebrated interior designer Alexandra Kidd specialises in. She’s just redesigned a three-bedroom apartment in a 1910 block in Kirribilli for a rightsizing couple moving from a ninebedroom house where they raised their six children.

“That can be quite a poignant emotional journey,” says Kidd. “But the gorgeous part is helping them embrace the idea that this is finally their opportunity to fulfil their wish list and relish the kind of things they might not have been able to have before with little hands and feet around.

“That could mean beautiful materials like Elba marble and luxe upholstery fabrics such as leather, velvet and silk, as well as being able to lay out spaces for their lifestyle, rather than worrying about the need for homework spaces and children’s play areas and teenage retreats. They can then maximise the space by making sure everything has its place, which is incredibly practical.”

A major report from Knight Frank, titled Rightsizing 2022, found that rightsizing Australians now dominate activity in the top 5 per cent of the country’s residential markets. They’re not necessarily downsizing, as they’re sometimes moving to bigger spaces and contributing to a major surge in high-end sales. In the first half of 2021, for instance, there was almost eight times the number of $10 million-plus apartment sales recorded than the 10-year average.

As a result, developers have started to build more three-bedroom luxury apartments to cater for those moving out of big houses and into big apartments.

“We have an ageing population that is capitalising on the sale of the family home to finance a move into a luxury apartment,” says Knight Frank head of residential research Michelle Ciesielski. “They’re looking for apartments with the rightsized proportions in terms of living areas on the same level, in the right locations and with low maintenance and lots of modern amenity.

The agency has just sold a multimilliondollar , 495-square-metre , three-bedroom apartment with Harbour Bridge views at Walsh Bay after it attracted so much rightsizer interest that a private auction was held.

Along with Crown Residences at One Barangaroo and One Sydney Harbour, it was one of the few oversized luxury apartments on the market in the city.

“Unfortunately, there’s just not enough stock,” says Adam Ross, Knight Frank associate director of residential sales, “and there’s not likely to be much more hitting the market soon. So many developers are still maximising the number of units they have on a site, which means they’re small and not appealing to rightsizers. But the demand is there, so hopefully, they will listen.”

CBRE managing director of residential projects David Milton says rightsizers just won’t compromise on space.

“They’re probably the fastest growing sector of the market with all the Baby Boomers benefiting from house price growth, and they’re very particular and want to enjoy their lifestyle more,” he says. “They want big apartments in areas like the lower north shore and eastern suburbs where they can walk to their favourite restaurants and cafes, and good design and value.”

The same is also true of much older Australians, those at the next stage of life moving into retirement living. Today, they increasingly have the choice of rightsizing into upmarket planned communities with large apartments, pools, gyms, spas and private cinemas.

“It’s been a massive shift where this age group don’t want to compromise their standards, and they no longer have to,” says Sally Taylor, managing director of Provectus Care’s Retirement by Moran, whose lavish The Rose by Moran building in Wahroonga just won the title of the best retirement village in NSW from the Urban Development Institute of Australia.

“We’re setting the benchmark in luxurious retirement living for what is a very discerning demographic. If it’s not up to their standards, then they won’t move out of their family homes.”

But rightsizers do need to be careful about their choices, suggests Wakelin Property Advisory director Jarrod McCabe.

Research is key before plunging headlong into such a big life-changing decision. Mistakes – if they upsize into somewhere too big or downsize too small

– can be costly, with the risk of losing some of the equity in their family home.

“As well, some people do it to put themselves on a secure financial footing but moving into an apartment might not necessarily be cheaper,” he warns. “A modern apartment might be as expensive as a big old family home, and then there are the strata fees that can exceed five figures per annum, which might be hard ... on a fixed income.

“But while rightsizing can be a great thing ... we’ve had people in the past who’ve rented to make sure apartment living is right for them before they sell up,” McCabe adds.