Jim and Lilian Coffey looked at various areas they would like to live when they decided to trade down from their detached four-bedroom home in Ballinclea Heights in Killiney, Co Dublin. They knew they wanted to live near a village like Dalkey or Glasthule. "I grew up in Rialto, which is a village – people lived to a great age, they could walk to the church, the shops," says Jim. Although the couple had great neighbours in suburban Ballinclea, often "you'd barely wave to one another, especially in winter".

Jim and Lilian made a list of what they wanted in a new home – they definitely wanted a place where all the family could gather to eat on Sundays, as they have done for years. They put their house up for sale in February 2015; meanwhile they placed bids on three houses and, after their own house had sold, bought one in June 2015.

The new house was a former two-storey council house on Hyde Road, just on the edge of Dalkey village, needing a lot of refurbishment. The couple put their furniture in storage and rented an apartment in Killiney, staying there for seven months. They weren’t trying to realise equity – “if we’d been downsizing for money, we might have bought an apartment”. Jim was told straight by his bank that it did not do bridging finance. He says he leaned on them and eventually did get a “facility of €500,000 that I could draw on if needed”.

They sold their 232sq m (2,500sq ft) Ballinclea house for about €700,000, bought their Dalkey house for about €500,000 (both through Lisney) and spent most of the difference on the refurbishment. They extended, building a kitchen/livingroom/diningroom where the family can gather at the back, installing a wetroom downstairs, “so that if, God forbid, one of us can’t go upstairs, we can turn the sittingroom at the front into a bedroom”.

The couple moved into their revamped 130sq m (1,400sq ft) home in February this year. “We’ve got to know neighbours, it’s everything we hoped; we’ve begun to belong to the community. It’s a bit of an adventure, but it’s much easier to face as a couple.”

New-build option: “This way, we’ve got exactly what we want”

Patricia Deveney's house on the corner of Gordon Avenue and Westminster Road in Foxrock was sold for €1.4 million at auction in April 2015. She and her husband had decided to downsize and build a new house in a section of their garden "because our house was old and cold and it was becoming more obvious as we became older. Neither of us would have stayed there if one of us had died."

It took longer to get planning permission to build their new house than the had anticipated, so for 15 months they rented a three-bedroom apartment in Dundrum which had two big balconies, a large kitchen and underground parking. The couple enjoyed living there far more than they had expected to, so much so that they would even consider buying an apartment and selling their new home in the future.

They are just now moving into the new house, which is about 60sq m (650sq ft) smaller than the 232sq m (2,500sq ft) house they sold: its three bedrooms are located at ground level and it has a walk-in en suite shower that would suit anyone with a disability, with wide doors and level entry.

Decluttering was difficult. “No one wants brown furniture or cut glass. We found the Sue Ryder charity was the best for taking clothes, bric-à-brac and furniture.” It was all costly , “but this way, we’ve got exactly what we want. I would say to anyone thinking of downsizing: do it when you still have enough energy. At retirement age, it’s a natural progression.”