Less house, more life.
The bigger place is tying up money and weekends you would rather have back. The move is not complicated — but it is not a thing to rush, and it starts with an honest number rather than a hopeful one.
You are probably here because:
- The house is bigger than the life in it now, and you have started noticing what it costs to keep.
- You want the money the place is sitting on, but not at the price of a sale you had to rush.
- Someone has told you what it is worth. You would like that checked by somebody with nothing to gain from flattering you.
If two of those landed, the rest of this page is the order I would do it in.
What right-sizing is actually about.
Right-sizing gets talked about as a financial decision, and the numbers do matter. But almost nobody I have worked with was primarily solving for money. They were solving for time, for stairs, for a spare room that had been a spare room for nine years, and for the quiet arithmetic of how much of their week the house was taking.
The money question underneath it is usually simpler than people fear and takes one afternoon to answer properly: what the place is genuinely worth today, what it leaves after the loan and the CPF refund, and what the smaller home and its running costs actually take. Once those three sit on one page, the decision tends to make itself.
What does need care is the pace. A sale that has to complete by a certain date is a sale that gets negotiated against you, and the whole point of right-sizing is that you are not under pressure. So we work backwards from when you want to be in the new place, leave the slack in on purpose, and hold a price rather than chase one. If a serious offer comes early, good. If it does not, nothing breaks.
And I will say the obvious thing: leaving a home you raised a family in is not a transaction, whatever the paperwork says. I have done this with people who needed a week between the offer and the signature, and that was fine. Several of them wrote about it afterwards.
How this actually goes.
Five steps, deliberately unhurried. The first two are the ones that let you take your time later.
We value the place properly first.
The last three comparable transactions, adjusted for floor, facing, size and condition — and how long each took to sell. You get the range and the reasoning, including the part of it you will not enjoy hearing. A free valuation is at the bottom of this page.
Then we work out what it leaves you.
Sale price, less any outstanding loan, less the CPF refund with accrued interest, less commission and legal fees. On a home held for decades the CPF refund is the line that surprises people most. It is still your money — it just goes back to CPF rather than to your bank account.
We work out what the smaller place actually costs.
Price, stamp duty, fees, and then the running costs you are moving to: maintenance, utilities, and the conservancy or management charges. The gap between the two homes is the point of the exercise, and it should be a number, not a feeling.
We set the pace, then list.
We work backwards from when you want to be in the new place and leave slack in on purpose. A seller with a deadline gets negotiated against; a seller with time holds their price. If the right offer comes in week two, we take it. If it takes three months, nothing breaks.
We line the two completions up.
Sale and purchase on one calendar, with the option to stay on after completion if the dates do not meet. You should move once, on a date you chose, without a storage unit in between.
From a family home sold last year.
“We were not in a hurry and she never made us feel like we should be. She held the price for eleven weeks, took the offer that came with the completion date we wanted, and arranged for us to stay on for a month afterwards.”
PlaceholderWritten to a brief, not by a client. Replace it with a real review, or delete the entry in data/home.ts — the section drops off the page rather than breaking the build.
The two numbers worth having before we talk.
Free, no sign-up, and nothing is sent to me. Start with the first one — everything else on this page rests on it.
Sale Proceeds Calculator
Start hereWhat actually reaches your account after the outstanding loan, the CPF refund with its accrued interest, commission and legal fees. On a long-held home this is the number people get most wrong.
Stamp Duty Calculator
Buyer's Stamp Duty on the next place. If your sale completes first, this is the whole duty bill — ABSD only enters if you buy while you still own the current home.
HDB Resale Outlay Calculator
If the smaller place is a resale flat: price, cash-over-valuation, fees, less any grant and loan. The full completion-day figure, so you know exactly what comes out of the proceeds.
If you would rather read first.
The posts on how I handle a deal are the ones worth your time before you list — including how I price a place I am fond of, and why I will talk a seller out of an offer.
Start with a free valuation.
Tell me what you are in and how to reach you. You get a written valuation with the three comparable transactions it rests on, and what the sale would leave you after the loan and the CPF refund. No obligation, and no list to get off.
I come back within two working days, in writing. If you would rather talk it through first, WhatsApp is faster than this form.
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Request received — thank you.
I come back within two working days, in writing, with the three comparable sales the number rests on.