When we mentioned to a status-conscious dinner guest that we may be selling our five-bedroom Cambridge home and downsizing, she almost choked on her crouton. She was too polite to say anything — but we knew what she was thinking was: “How could they?”In certain circles, I discovered, the topic of moving down the property ladder can be a real conversation-killer. What might, in more buoyant times, have been considered a smart money-making move, now smacks of unseemly panic.

Downsizing, it seems, has become the fourth “D” — taking its place alongside
divorce, death and debt as one of the few causes of activity in our ossified
property market.

Undaunted, my wife, Jenny, and I are perfectly serious about going back down the same ladder we have spent our adult lives climbing. I am now 61, she 57, and we are turning into empty-nesters: one of our grown-up daughters is in Australia, the other traveling as part of her language degree.

We have found ourselves rattling around a house far larger than we need, with sky-high running costs. And with pension “black holes” looming, we need to raise serious money to help fund our senior years; not to mention wanting to help our children buy their first homes.

Our first one-bedroom London flats, before we started cohabiting in the early 1980s, cost us about £10,000 apiece. Now, almost 30 years and three moves later, we own a freehold, five-bedroom, Edwardian family home in one of the most salubrious streets in Cambridge, near the river, valued three months ago at about £900,000 — the mortgage on which has long since been paid off.

So all in our garden seemed rosy, until the financial maelstrom put paid to
our vision of a cosy “third age”. As a freelance writer, I had hoped to have
the luxury of taking on paid work when it suited me, when not developing as
a late-flowering sculptor. And who knows, we might just have had enough left over to buy that small property to winter in by the Med.

However, the private pension scheme I have been dutifully paying into for 30 years has reduced by a third or more in value; as a civil servant of 10
years, Jenny will get a modest pension — but the fact is, we could do with
the money that downsizing releases.

Despite all the fond familial memories, it was time to face facts and move on.
So we had a look to see what was out there. Within five minutes of viewing a
scaled-down version of our semi nearby, I knew I would feel claustrophobic.

Next, we searched for a characterful period house closer to town. When we
found an early 19th-century terraced cottage that had been skilfully
enlarged — with a price tag of £495,000 — we thought we had struck gold.
That was before the bidding war began: the house, situated in a perennial
Cambridge “hot spot”, went for more than £100,000 above the asking price.

A converted maltings a few doors away from the lost Georgian gem that we had earmarked as a potential live/work space was still on the market, and at a reduced price. We had originally rejected this architect-converted eccentricity as too big and too expensive, but then came another thought:
“You are good with people and we are looking for extra income,” said Jenny.
“So why don’t we buy the maltings and run it as an upmarket B&B?” The allure began to fade, however, with the prospect of having to produce daily fry-ups.

Our plight, it seems, is typical of many of our generation. According to
figures compiled by the estate agents Knight Frank, 55-to 59-year-olds are
the age group with the largest share per head of the country’s housing
wealth: on average they live in homes worth £202,500.

“People’s housing wealth tends to peak at age 60,” says Liam Bailey, the
agency’s head of residential research, “and at this point many start to cash
in and draw value from their property to fund all or part of their
retirement.”

Which makes what we baby boomers do of significance for the future of the
housing market: when we and our contemporaries finally bite the bullet, not
only will we release some much-needed family houses onto the market, some of us will also pass some of the proceeds of the sale on to our children, the next generation of first-time buyers, breathing life into the lower end of
the market.

For Bob Mitchell, 64, a businessman on the brink of retirement, and his wife, Carole, 60, it is time to sell their 3,100 sq ft, Grade II-listed Jacobean
family home, just outside Worcester, which they bought and restored 21 years ago. With their two grown-up children having moved out, and wanting to free up some cash, they have put the sixbedroom, three reception-room house on the market for £450,000. “We are looking for something smaller and more modern that requires a great deal less work,” says Bob.

The couple are planning a move to Pembrokeshire and hope to find a
four-bedroom house for no more than £250,000. “With hindsight, we should have perhaps sold up a few years ago,” says Mitchell, “but as I was working full-time, it works better for us to do it now.” (Holywell House is for sale with Knight Frank; 01905 723438, knightfrank.co.uk).

Others are making downsizing part of a long-term retirement-fund plan. David Osborne, 59, works for an engineering company and is not planning to stop work for another few years, but about a month ago he moved to a three-bed terraced house on Crest Nicholson’s Avante development in Maidstone, Kent, after selling his four-bedroom detached home in nearby Staplehurst. “I live on my own now,” he says, “and my two grown-up children have families of their own. I was rattling around my old house, so I sold it, for £325,000, and bought my new one for £195,000. Even though it was a hard decision to make, I wanted to cut down on running costs as soon as possible — the new house has great energy-saving credentials. I have no regrets.”

Despite the falling market, Lucian Cook, director of residential research at
Savills estate agency, says it is a good time to downsize. “Those who have
put off the decision, due to the torrid market conditions of 2008, can at
least now be confident of selling their property relatively quickly, if they
don’t succumb to the temptation to overprice it,” he says. “We are
forecasting further house-price falls, but the clever downsizers will be the
ones who catch a wave of optimism.”

For now, however, Jenny and I have taken our house off the market while we decide what to do and how best to secure our financial futures. Ultimately, for cash-squeezed baby-boomers like us, staying positive is a mantra to repeat daily before devouring the property pages.

Additional reporting by Emma Wells