Nowhere to Downsize

In place of a profile picture, the interviewee submitted an image of one of their favorite places in Flagstaff

A longtime Flagstaff resident bought a larger home so her mother could live with her. After her mother passed away and a job loss disrupted the household's finances, she and her husband began renting out parts of the house to make ends meet.

That arrangement has helped them stay in Flagstaff and provided housing for other working residents. Now, as they plan for retirement, they want a smaller place of their own. Finding one may mean leaving the community they love.

What brought you to, and kept you in, Flagstaff?

We moved here for work. We weren’t sure about it at first, but now, to me, it's the best place in the world. I'm an outdoor person, I love being able to walk out the door and go hiking. And I also have a great community of friends.

You can still walk downtown and see people you know. I was at a party the other day, and someone was talking about a person who might move in with a friend. I was like, “Oh, I know that person.” Someone needs work done on their house: “What about this guy we know?”

It still feels like that kind of town to me.

And yet you're thinking about leaving?

Yes, but I really don't want to move. My husband has other reasons for wanting to move, but housing is a big part of it. We're at the point where we want to retire. If we could downsize into another house here, we would have already done it. It just doesn't feel like a realistic possibility.

How did you end up in a house that's too big for you?

When we first moved here, we didn't think we could afford a home. But we managed to get into a little house outside of town, and I loved it. We lived there for years.

Then my mom got sick. We wanted her to come live with us, but we needed more room. And because she was very sick, it was easier to be in town closer to medical care. So we bought a bigger house, gave my mom the main bedroom, and made it work. After a few years, she died, and we were left with a house that was too big for us.

What happened next?

Some time later my husband lost his job, while I had quit my job to go back to school. We had also bought another small house outside of Flagstaff, using some retirement money and money my mom had left us. We thought we might eventually move there. So suddenly we had two houses and no paycheck.

We pivoted. I went back to work while still in school. My husband found work, but it paid a fraction of what he'd been making. We started renting the other house, and then we paid a friend to turn the downstairs of our Flagstaff house into an apartment. Eventually, we started renting out another part of our house too.

It wasn’t the housing market that originally got us into this. It was someone coming home and saying, “I don't have a job anymore.” We were thinking, “Are we going to lose our house?”

Looking back, I’m very proud of us. We were like, “We're going to figure this out”, and we did.

What does that arrangement look like now?

It feels like we live in an apartment. We own the house, but we only occupy a fraction of it. We rent out the downstairs apartment, and we also have someone living in another part of the house who shares the kitchen with us.

That's how we've afforded to stay in Flagstaff.

Who are you renting to?

Mostly working people. Professionals, not just students looking for a room.

We've had people stay for years. We try not to charge too much. We want people we like living with, and we don't want to be awful about it. One colleague lived with us and was able to pay off her car while she was there. That felt good.

Do you like sharing the house?

In some ways, yes. From an environmental standpoint, I like that we do this. It feels like a very community-oriented thing to do. But you want it to be an option, right? You don't want it to be what you have to do.

When we first started, our families thought we were absolutely insane. But our friends here were just like, “Yeah, makes sense. You've got to do something.”

And there's work involved in keeping it going?

There is. When our internet went down, I had to take time off work to deal with it because I had tenants depending on it. There's finding new people, keeping things up, paying all the utilities. It's not just easy money. There's work to it.

It's also a big house. It's more maintenance than we want to deal with for the rest of our lives. At some point, we need to do something different.

What would you like that next step to be?

We have a lot of equity in the house. We'd like to sell it, buy a smaller home, and use some of what's left for retirement. We're not wealthy. We've both worked our entire lives, and we're comfortable, but we want our retirement to last.

What happens when you look for a smaller home?

You see something that looks like it might be affordable, and then you find out it's a manufactured home where you also have to rent the site. I've seen places where that site rent was around $1,400 a month. So we could buy the home, but we'd still have that big monthly cost.

Even a condo doesn't necessarily work. To get something suitable, we'd probably still need another mortgage. My husband is already retired, and I'm looking at retiring in the next few years. That's not when you want to take on a mortgage.

Are you looking for anything elaborate?

No. I would love to move back into the little house we started in. It was about 900 square feet. I could even go a little smaller. I want something livable. We're older. We don't want a huge fixer-upper where we have to put on a roof and spend a lot of money getting it into shape. I've never really wanted to live in a condo, but I would if it made sense financially.

We've looked farther out too. It still doesn't feel like there's anything realistic, even before leaving ourselves an extra retirement buffer.

What about a smaller place outside Flagstaff?

We tried that. After selling the other house and paying off my student loans, we eventually bought another small place farther out, thinking it could be our downsizing house.

We rented it out for a while. But living there would have meant a long drive to work and into Flagstaff, and we had to have water hauled in. When our water delivery options became less reliable, that didn't feel sustainable either. We sold it.

We've kept trying to find ways to make our lives work. Renting out part of our current house lets us live here. To get away from that, we're probably going to have to move.

Do you hear the same thing from other people your age?

Absolutely. I have friends who would like a smaller home that's easier to take care of. Their house is getting older, it needs work, and they don't want to keep putting money and effort into it. But there's nowhere affordable for them to go.

A lot of people I know also rent out part of their house, or they dogsit, or they have some other source of income. Even people who have been here a long time and own their homes are looking for ways to bring in extra money to stay in Flagstaff.

What about the younger people in your life?

A lot of my younger colleagues don't intend to stay because of the housing market, which really sucks. Some have been able to buy because their parents helped them. Others bought before things got so expensive. But a lot of people who move here hoping to build a life don't see how they could ever afford a home.

That colleague who lived with us eventually moved out of state. She made a good income, but was like, “I will never be able to afford a home here.”

That was also a friend leaving.

Yes. We'd worked together for years, and she'd lived with us. We were really close friends. We still are, but she lives across the country now.

At work, it's an issue too. We've lost people for different reasons, but at least a couple because of housing. It makes things harder for the people who are still here. People move here, live here for a couple of years, we train them, and then they go away.

Does that turnover show up outside of work?

Yes. I'm involved in a small community nonprofit, and it's difficult there too. We get young people coming in, we love them, and then they leave after a couple of years.

The people who stay tend to be those of us who've been here forever and have a house.

I love my friends who've been here a long time. But I have younger friends too, and it's hard hearing them say they want to stay, but they're looking at somewhere cheaper.

You've put a lot into this community. But it feels like you can't put down roots here?

It feels like we have really deep roots here, but we're going to have to rip them up.

We're really involved. I do a lot of volunteer work. We have a great community of friends. We're part of this place. That's why I really don't want to move. Part of me would stay forever and just keep renting out the house. But it doesn't make sense for our retirement, and it's more house than we want to maintain.

What do you most want people to take away from your story?

We can figure out affordable housing. We put people on the freaking moon.

I hear young people who have given up on the idea that they'll ever own a home. And I hear people say, “Well, housing is expensive everywhere.” No. We can do this. We have to figure out how. It has to be a priority.

I grew up feeling like the American dream was for everybody. It really bothers me that younger people don't seem to have that same feeling. Everyone should feel like there's a reasonable path to a home of some sort. When a working professional can't afford to live here, something's wrong.

This conversation has been edited and reorganized for length and clarity, with identifying details omitted or generalized.