The Upstate has earned numerous accolades for being a great place to live, including making SmartAsset’s list of best places to retire for the last six years. In 2021, Greer topped Travel and Leisure’s list of Best Small Towns to Retire in the U.S.
Many retirees and empty nesters are looking to downsize from a larger home to a smaller one with less maintenance and associated costs. But some, especially if they are moving from out of state and leaving behind their kids and grandkids, want something a little bigger but for less money.
Bill Fessenden, 66, and wife Karen, 63, had their eye on the Upstate for the past several years due to Karen’s frequent work trips to Greenville for her job with TD Bank. They wanted to leave the cold of New Hampshire and settle into the warmer mountain weather. They weren’t looking to downsize though — they needed extra space for when their grandchildren visited.
Working virtually with their Greenville-based Realtor, Stephanie Lasitter, they ended up buying a 2,000-square-foot home on a third of an acre in Mauldin in December. The first time they saw it in person was the day before closing.
“It was even better than the pictures,” Bill Fessenden says.
Lasitter has found that people downsizing in Greenville are often the ones looking for smaller homes in walkable neighborhoods with no maintenance, but it’s different for those coming from the Northeast.
“They are more concerned about location than about the size of their home,” she says.
Market Changes
The pandemic has changed the market, not to mention priorities, for those in the 55+ age range.
Melissa Morrell has been a real estate agent for more than 19 years and has seen nothing like this market or the changing priorities of buyers.
Lasitter agrees. “That’s the driving force behind the clients I have coming down here,” she says.
Morrell’s clients in the older age group who want to downsize tend to prioritize high-quality, low-maintenance homes, often seeking gated communities close to hospitals, retail and downtowns. She said many of her clients have had big homes in the Cobblestone or Spaulding Farm neighborhoods and don’t want all those amenities and yard work any longer.
“I’d consider their choices downsizing but not necessarily in the way most of us think of downsizing,” Morrell says. “In some cases, it’s square footage but a different layout with a smaller yard. A lot of them still want to have a roomy garage with an outdoor living package.”
This is exactly what Rosewood Communities offers, and that’s a significant reason for their success throughout the Upstate in the past 21 years. They focus on cottage-style single-family homes with outdoor living space and zero maintenance.
“We tend to attract empty nesters because of our concept — low maintenance, lock-and-leave living,” says Cathi Austin, sales manager at Rosewood Communities. “Residents can literally lock their house up and take off with no worries. Even their plants will be automatically watered while they are away.”
Ninety percent of the buyers in Rosewood Communities are ages 55 and over and many are downsizing, knowing they cannot handle the care of a 4,000-square-foot home on a large plot of land any longer and are looking to make the move while they are healthy and active enough to do so, Austin says.
While Bill and Karen Fessenden did not exactly downsize in their move to Greenville, they are part of the growing community of retirees who now call the Upstate their home. And what do they like the most about Greenville? They have an easy answer: “The weather.”
