Downsizing in San Diego

You have lived in your home for decades. It has been good to you. But something has shifted — maybe the stairs, maybe the yard, maybe the four bedrooms you have not opened in years, perhaps you’re feeling increasingly isolated — and you have started to wonder whether it still fits the life you are actually living.

This page is the guide we wish every homeowner had before making this decision. It is written for people 55 and older in San Diego County who are thinking about moving to something smaller, simpler, and easier to live in. It covers the timing, the tax rules, the money, the logistics, and the honest trade-offs — including the cases where downsizing is the wrong choice.

We are Jean and Ken Tritle of DreamWell Homes Realty, based in North County San Diego. We have been helping North San Diego County homeowners make this exact transition since 2010. Everything here comes from those transactions, not from a template.

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Is Downsizing Actually Right for You?

Most articles on this subject assume the answer is yes. It is not always yes, and you deserve an honest accounting before anyone starts talking about listing your house.

Signs it is time to seriously consider it

• You have started avoiding parts of your own home — the upstairs, the back yard, a bathroom you cannot comfortably use.
• Maintenance has become something you defer rather than something you do.
• A fall has already happened, or you have caught yourself being careful on the stairs in a way you were not five years ago.
• Property taxes, insurance, utilities, and upkeep on a house you no longer fully use are consuming income you would rather spend on your life.
• You are house-rich and cash-constrained, with substantial equity locked in a property that is costing you money to hold.
• You want to be closer to medical care, family, or a community with people in it.
• You have less and less interaction with neighbors and friends and desire more social opportunities.

Reasons to wait, or not to move at all

Downsizing is not free, and in California it is sometimes not even cheaper. Consider staying if:

• Your property tax basis is very low and Proposition 19 does not help you. A homeowner who bought in 1985 may be paying taxes on an assessed value a fraction of current market. Prop 19 can protect that (see below), but the rules have conditions and limits.
• Single-story inventory in your target area is genuinely scarce. In parts of North County it is. Selling before you have found the next home can leave you renting for a year.
• Modifying your current home would solve the actual problem. A stair lift or elevator, a walk-in shower, and a first-floor bedroom conversion sometimes cost far less than a move — commissions, closing costs, movers, and new furnishings add up quickly.
• Your support network is your neighborhood. The neighbor who checks on you and the friend two streets over have real value that does not show up on a spreadsheet.

We have told people not to sell. If that is the right answer for you, we will say so.

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Proposition 19: The California Rule That Changes the Math

This is the single most important thing California homeowners over 55 get wrong, and most downsizing articles skip it entirely.

Under Proposition 19, a homeowner who is 55 or older can transfer the assessed value of their current primary residence to a replacement primary residence anywhere in California. If you have owned your home a long time, this changes the arithmetic completely.

The official source is the San Diego County Assessor’s Property Tax Relief for Seniors page. Everything below comes from there. Their own video explains the program in under three minutes and is worth watching before you do anything else:

Video courtesy of the San Diego County Assessor, Recorder, County Clerk.

The conditions, specifically

• Age 55 or older when the original home is sold. For married couples, only one spouse needs to be 55.
• Two years between the two transactions. You must sell the original and buy or complete construction of the replacement within a two-year period. You can sell before or after buying — the order does not matter, the window does.
• Three transfers in a lifetime. An individual may qualify three times.
• Both homes must be your principal residence and eligible for the Homeowners’ Exemption. Not a rental, not a second home.
• No value limit. The replacement can cost any amount. Anything above 100% of the original’s market value is added to the transferred assessed value.
• Anywhere in California. You are not restricted to San Diego County.
• New construction qualifies, with specific requirements. Call the Assessor at (619) 531-5481 before you build.
• You must file. It is not automatic. Submit the application within three years of buying the replacement property. File later than that and the exclusion applies only going forward from the filing date — you lose everything before it.

Two details that catch people out

What transfers is your factored base year value. If your current assessment reflects a temporary reduction — a Prop 8 decline-in-value adjustment, or a Mills Act historical property value — those do not carry over. Know which number is actually yours before you plan around it.

Your assessed value transfers, but your tax bill may still change. Tax rates vary by area. Moving into a district with different rates or Mello-Roos assessments means the bill can differ even when the assessed value is identical. Worth checking for the specific community you are considering.

How to file

Download the Senior Reappraisal Exclusion Application (Form 19-B) and submit it with government-issued ID for age verification. You can email it to PROP19@sdcounty.ca.gov, mail it to the Assessor’s Senior/Disabled Exclusion Unit at 1600 Pacific Highway, Suite 103, San Diego, CA 92101, or file in person at any County office. Staff at the Kearny Mesa office can help you complete it.

While you are at it, file the Homeowners’ Exemption on the new property too. It is a separate form and it saves $70 a year that people routinely leave on the table.

We are real estate professionals, not tax advisors. Everything above comes from the San Diego County Assessor and is accurate as we understand it, but rules change and your situation may have wrinkles. Confirm with the Assessor at (619) 531-5481 and with your CPA before making decisions. What we can do is make sure the question gets asked early, while your timeline is still flexible enough to act on the answer — because we have watched people find out too late.

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What to Look for in the Next Home

“Single story” is where most people start, and it is the right starting point. It is not the finish line. Two homes can both be single story and be ten years apart in how long they will work for you.

Here is what we walk through with clients, in the order it tends to matter:

Getting in the door

• How many steps from the car to the front door? Zero is the goal. Even one or two matter on a bad day or with groceries.
• Driveway and walkway slope. A steep driveway is a permanent daily obstacle that no renovation fixes.
• Threshold height at exterior doors. A raised threshold is a trip hazard and a wheelchair barrier.
• Covered entry. Fumbling for keys in the rain is a small thing until it is not.

The bathroom

This is the room that decides whether you can stay. A step-in or curbless shower is worth more than an extra bedroom. Look for blocking in the walls for future grab bars, a comfort-height toilet, and enough turning room that a walker could get through the door if it ever came to that. A bathroom can be renovated, but budget for it honestly before you buy.

Moving through the house

• Doorway widths. Standard interior doors in older homes are often too narrow for a walker or wheelchair.
• Hallway width and turning radius at corners.
• Sunken living rooms and interior steps. These are common in homes built in the 1960s and 70s and they defeat the purpose of single story.
• Flooring transitions between rooms.
• Laundry location. In the garage down two steps is not the same as in the hallway.

Everything outside the walls

• Distance to the mailbox and the trash bins. In some communities this is a quarter mile.
• Yard maintenance burden, and whether the HOA covers it or not.
• Distance to your doctors, not just to a hospital.
• Whether the community has services that come to you, and whether it has people you would want to know.
• Lighting — interior and along walkways.

If a full single-story home is not available in the area you want, a home with the primary bedroom on the main floor is often the practical middle ground.

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Buy First or Sell First?

This is the question that keeps people awake, and there is no universal answer. There is a right answer for your situation, and it depends on your equity, your financing, and how much disruption you can absorb.

Buying first

The advantage: you move once, on your own schedule. You are not negotiating from a position of urgency. And critically, you get to prepare and show your old home empty or purposely staged— which almost always sells faster and for more, because buyers can see the house instead of your furniture, and because you are not managing showings while living there.

The requirement: you need to carry both properties briefly, or use a financing structure that bridges the gap. If you have substantial equity, more options exist than most people realize.

Selling first

The advantage: you know exactly what you have to spend, you carry no double payment, and you are a clean non-contingent buyer — which is real leverage in a competitive offer.

The risk: you may need somewhere to live. A rent-back agreement, where the buyer lets you stay in the home for a defined period after closing, solves this more often than people expect. It has to be negotiated into the contract, not asked for afterward.

The structures that make either path work

• Rent-back — you sell, then stay as a tenant for an agreed period while you close on and move into the new home.
• Sale contingency — your purchase is contingent on your sale closing. Weaker in a competitive market, but it protects you.
• Bridge financing — short-term borrowing against your existing equity to buy before you sell.
• Creative financing – using IRA and Stock holdings.
• Extended escrow — a longer closing period on one or both transactions to let the timing line up.

The reason to have this conversation before you list anything is that the choice determines how both transactions get written. Deciding after your home is on the market means taking whatever timing the buyer offers.

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Senior Move Managers: The Professionals Most People Have Never Heard Of

Ask anyone who has downsized what the hardest part was. Almost nobody says the negotiation or the paperwork. They say sorting through the house and moving.

Thirty or forty years of belongings, most of it attached to a memory, and every item requiring a decision. It is physically exhausting and emotionally heavier than people anticipate. It is also the single most common reason a planned move gets postponed for another year.

Senior Move Managers are professionals who do exactly this. A full-service engagement typically covers:

• Sorting and deciding what goes, what is given to family, what is donated and what is sold
• Space planning the new home in advance, so you know what actually fits before you move it
• Coordinating estate sales, consignment, donation pickups, and disposal
• Packing, moving, and unpacking
• Setting up the new home — beds made, kitchen functional, pictures hung — so it is livable on the first night

Most work hourly and will scope a project after a walkthrough. Costs vary widely with the size of the household and how much you want handled. The relevant comparison is not to zero — it is to the months of your own labor, the cost of moving items you will not keep, and the real possibility that the exhaustion causes you to abandon the move entirely.

The National Association of Senior & Specialty Move Managers maintains a directory of accredited members. We also work with several in North San Diego County and are glad to make an introduction whether or not you work with us.

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Preparing the Family Home for Sale

A home lived in for decades is rarely market-ready, and the instinct to fix everything before listing is usually expensive and wrong.

What is generally worth doing

• Emptying the house. This is the highest-return action available and it costs nothing but effort.
• Paint, in a current neutral.
• Flooring, if it is worn or heavily dated.
• Deep cleaning, including windows, light fixtures and especially bathrooms and kitchens.
• Landscape cleanup. Curb appeal decides whether people come inside.
• Anything a buyer’s inspector will flag as a safety issue.

What is usually not worth doing

• A full kitchen remodel. You rarely recover it, and buyers frequently redo it anyway.
• Bathroom gut renovations, for the same reason.
• Room additions or reconfigurations.
• High-end finishes in a mid-market neighborhood.

The right answer is specific to your home, your neighborhood, and the buyers currently shopping in it. We walk the house with you and tell you which repairs will return more than they cost and which will not — before you spend anything.

Start with a free home valuation, or read more about why selling a 55+ home is different.

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See Where You Might Land

Here is something we have noticed over the years of helping people through this. For most homeowners, downsizing stops being an abstract someday-decision the moment they can actually picture the place.

Not a listing photo of a kitchen. The walking paths. The pool on a Tuesday morning. Neighbors out with coffee. A clubhouse with something actually happening in it. A floorplan you can imagine your own furniture in.

That is usually the moment it becomes real, and it is worth doing long before you are ready to move. So here are the community tours we have filmed across San Diego County. Watch a few. There is nothing to sign up for and nobody will know you looked.

Use the playlist menu in the top corner of the player to jump between communities.

Places in San Diego County that suit downsizers well

Not every neighborhood works for this move. The ones that do tend to share a few things: single-story homes, an HOA that handles the exterior and the landscaping, and enough going on that you meet people without having to work at it.

• The Top 10 Gated 55+ Communities in San Diego County — our ranked guide, and the best place to start if you do not know the landscape yet
• All San Diego 55+ communities — the full list, by city
• Map of San Diego County 55+ communities — useful for seeing what is near your doctors, your children, or the coast
• More community video tours

Worth saying plainly: a 55+ community is not the right answer for everyone, and plenty of our clients downsize into ordinary neighborhoods instead. But if part of what you want from this move is more company and more to do, these communities are built for exactly that. Some of the people who call us are not downsizing at all. They have a house that works fine and they want a life with more in it.

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Where Single-Story Homes Actually Exist in North San Diego County

Inventory is the constraint nobody warns you about. San Diego County has plenty of homes; it has far fewer that genuinely work for someone who does not want stairs. Knowing where to look saves months.

• Ocean Hills Country Club, Oceanside 92056— 55+ gated and guarded, a mix of single-story and two-story homes – all with ground level bedrooms. HOA covers roof, exterior and landscape maintenance. This is a large and active 55+ community with its own private golf course, 8 dedicated pickleball courts, 3 tennis courts, a huge saltwater, solar-heated pool, a 27,000 square foot clubhouse with 40+ active social clubs. Ocean Hills Country Club’s location provides for more coastal influenced, cooler weather.
• Pacifica – Oceanside Manor, Oceanside 92056 – 55+ not gated. Consists of 223 homes in a mix of duplex-style and single family detached. All homes are single level. Pacifica is in a great location for convenience, as it is very close to major shopping and Sharpe Tri-City Medical Center. The HOA includes roof, exterior and front yard maintenance and provides a pool, clubhouse, tennis courts and pickleball. Uniquely, the community also has a large grassy park for pets and grandchildren to play in. Pacifica’s location provides for more coastal influenced, cooler weather.
• Lake San Marcos, San Marcos 92078— mixed age-restricted and all-ages neighborhoods, substantial single-story inventory. There are lots of activities in Lake San Marcos, two golf courses, the lake itself for fishing and boating, tennis, pickleball and pools.
• Villa Trieste, Oceanside 92056 — 55+ gated community in the Del Oro Hills area of South Oceanside, built in the early-to-mid 1990s. A low-maintenance option with an HOA that covers roof maintenance, exterior painting, fencing, front and common-area landscaping, and pest control, plus a clubhouse, pool, spa, bocce court, and walking paths. Worth knowing before you tour: the community includes both single-level ground-floor units and two-story plans with lofts, so confirm which you are seeing. Vills Trieste’s location provides for more coastal influenced, cooler weather.
• Oaks North, Rancho Bernardo — 55+, and the largest community on this list at 1,963 homes: 1,379 condominiums and 584 single-family homes. That ratio matters — roughly seven in ten homes here are condos, so if you specifically want a detached home you are shopping a much smaller pool than the headline number suggests. The trade-off is lifestyle: the public Oaks North Golf Course and the community center with its full slate of clubs and activities, plus Bernardo Winery within walking distance — a weekly farmers market, regular events, a restaurant, and artist studios and village shops. For anyone whose reason for moving is partly wanting more going on, this is one of the strongest options in the county. One gated sub-association sits within it: Chapala. Worth noting that Rancho Bernardo runs considerably warmer than the coast in summer.
• Seven Oaks, Rancho Bernardo — 55+, single-story, and one of the older 55+ communities in the area. The homes date to an earlier era and many need meaningful updating. It can make sense if you are comfortable renovating or looking for a lower entry price, but go in knowing what you are taking on.
• Auberge at Del Sur, San Diego 92127 — 55+ gated, 206 resort-style homes built 2016–2018 by Lennar, roughly 1,276–2,923 sq ft. Newer construction than most 55+ inventory in the county, which matters if you would rather not renovate a bathroom before you move in. Note that some neighborhoods here include two-story plans: Summerhouse offers two-story homes with the primary suite downstairs, and The Villas at Auberge includes both single- and two-story floorplans. Confirm which you are touring.
• Avante at Del Sur, San Diego 92127 — 55+ gated, 120 luxury condos built 2018–2021 by Lennar. Single-level living with no exterior maintenance at all, which suits people who want to lock the door and travel. Condo ownership is a different proposition from a detached home — worth understanding the HOA structure before you commit.
• East Ridge, Fallbrook 92028 – 55+ gated, 80 custom built homes, constructed in the late 1980s through the 1990s, in a more rural, peaceful setting, close to downtown Fallbrook.

A note on geography: Del Sur sits in the City of San Diego near 4S Ranch and Rancho Bernardo, further inland and south than the coastal North County communities above. Worth driving if newer construction matters to you, and worth checking the distance to your doctors before you fall in love with it.

Browse all San Diego 55+ communities or single-story homes for sale across San Diego County.

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The Costs Nobody Mentions

Downsizing is usually a good financial decision. It is not a free one, and you should go in with the full list:

• Real estate commissions and closing costs on the sale
• Closing costs on the purchase
• Pre-sale repairs, paint, and cleaning
• Moving and Senior Move Manager services
• Accessibility modifications to the new home
• New furnishings, because your old furniture will not all fit and some of it will not suit the space
• HOA dues, if you are moving into a community that has them and you did not have them before
• Capital gains tax, if your gain exceeds the primary-residence exclusion — a real consideration for anyone who has held San Diego property for decades. Talk to your CPA early.
• Property tax changes, unless Prop 19 protects you

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The Mistakes We See Most Often

• Waiting for a crisis. The most expensive mistake on this list, and the most common.
• Not filing the Prop 19 claim. The benefit is not automatic. People lose it every year.
• Moving furniture that does not fit. Paying to transport a dining set that will not go in the new room, and then paying again to remove it.
• Over-improving before listing. Spending $60,000 on a kitchen to recover $30,000.
• Buying single-story and stopping there. Then discovering the sunken living room, the step-over tub, and the narrow hallways.
• Excluding adult children — or handing them the decision. Either extreme creates problems. Include them in the conversation while it is still your decision to make.
• Hiring an agent who does this occasionally. This transaction is different from a standard sale in ways that only show up when something goes wrong. Hire an expert who does this every day.

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How We Work

Jean and Ken Tritle have specialized in San Diego 55+ and single-story real estate since 2010. Ken holds the SRES® (Seniors Real Estate Specialist) designation. We are based in North County San Diego and work throughout the region.

What that means practically:

• We plan the purchase and the sale together from the first conversation, so the timing, financing, and moving logistics are handled by one team rather than negotiated between two.
• We bring the team. Senior Move Managers, inspectors, contractors, estate sale specialists, and financial resources we have worked with for years — not names pulled off a list mid-transaction.
• We move at your pace. Some of our clients called us two years before they were ready. That is a completely reasonable way to start.

One client put it better than we could:

“He frequently anticipated our needs before we even realized there was a need… If there is a need or challenge, Ken’s expertise and extensive team has a solution. And if there are difficult people to deal with, he is a staunch and tenacious advocate for his clients.”

Gary Hague, Lake San Marcos — read the full story

You can read more client reviews here.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Downsizing in San Diego

When should I start planning to downsize?

Earlier than feels necessary. Homeowners who begin planning while the stairs are still manageable get to choose the community, the floorplan, the timing, and the price. Homeowners who wait until a health event forces the decision usually move on someone else’s schedule, often from a hospital or rehab facility, with far fewer options and a lower net result. Eighteen months of lead time costs nothing and preserves every choice. Of note: A majority of of clients tell us on follow-up conversations a year or more after they’ve made this transition, that they should have started this process ten years earlier, because, they are so thrilled with the positive changes that this move made in their lives.

Will my property taxes go up if I downsize in California?

Not necessarily. Under Proposition 19, California homeowners 55 and older can transfer the assessed value of their primary residence to a replacement primary residence anywhere in California. You must sell the original home and buy the replacement within a two-year period, in either order, and an individual may use the benefit three times in a lifetime. There is no price limit on the replacement home; any amount above 100 percent of the original’s market value is added to the transferred assessed value. The exclusion is not automatic. You must file an application with the County Assessor within three years of the purchase, or it applies only going forward from the filing date. Confirm current rules with the San Diego County Assessor at (619) 531-5481 and with your CPA.

Should I buy my new home first or sell my current home first?

It depends on your equity, your financing, and how much disruption you can tolerate. Buying first means you move once, on your own timeline, and you can show your old home empty, which almost always sells better. Selling first means no double payment and makes you a non-contingent buyer. Rent-back agreements, sale contingencies, bridge financing, and extended escrows can make either path work. Decide before you list, because the choice determines how both transactions are written.

What is a Senior Move Manager and do I need one?

A Senior Move Manager is a professional who handles the downsizing of an entire household: sorting decades of belongings, space-planning the new home, coordinating donations and estate sales, packing, moving, unpacking, and setting up the new home so it is livable on day one. For most people leaving a longtime family home this is the most exhausting part of the process and the most common reason a planned move gets postponed. Most work hourly and scope the project after a walkthrough.

What should I look for in a single-story home beyond the floorplan?

Step-in or curbless showers, walls with blocking for future grab bars, doorway and hallway widths, threshold heights at exterior doors, driveway and walkway slope, absence of sunken rooms or interior steps, laundry location, lighting, and the distance from parking to the front door. Also consider proximity to your doctors and whether the community brings services to you. A single-story floorplan is the starting point, not the finish line.

Is it ever better not to downsize?

Perhaps. Staying can be the better choice if your property tax basis is very low and Proposition 19 does not apply to your situation, if modifying your current home would solve the actual problem for far less than the cost of moving, if single-story inventory in your target area is too scarce to move confidently, or if your neighborhood is your support network. A good agent will tell you when the answer is to stay.

Which North San Diego County communities have the most single-story homes?

Ocean Hills Country Club and Villa Trieste in Oceanside, Lake San Marcos in San Marcos, and Oaks North and Seven Oaks in Rancho Bernardo all offer substantial single-story inventory, most within age-restricted communities where the HOA handles exterior and landscape maintenance. For newer construction, Auberge at Del Sur and Avante at Del Sur in San Diego 92127 were built between 2016 and 2021. Availability, pricing, HOA coverage, and the proportion of true single-story plans vary considerably between them.

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More Downsizing Resources

We write regularly about this subject. Everything we publish on downsizing lives in one place: all downsizing articles.

Practical guides

• Where to live between homes: temporary housing options for downsizers
• Preparing a longtime family home to sell
• Why selling a 55+ home is different
• Free home valuation

Where to look

• Single-story homes for sale in San Diego County
• Homes with the primary bedroom on the main floor
• All San Diego 55+ communities
• Map of San Diego County 55+ communities

Families who have already done this

• Lake San Marcos: leaving a two-story family home for single-story living
• All DreamWell Homes Realty success stories

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