The Downsizing Trend

With the housing market cooling off, some homeowners are taking stock of what they have, and deciding to downsize from a spacious home to a more manageable flat or apartment.

"David Horwitz and his wife, Diane, are the type of homeowners looking to streamline their expenses and unload their roomy homes for more humbler abodes. The Horwitzes, both semi-retired, just moved into a 1,200 square-foot apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan after living in a 2,200 square-foot home in Scarsdale, New York.

'Our property taxes went down by 1,000 percent, the ConEd (bill) was cut by two-thirds and the cost of home maintenance was reduced by at least 50 percent,' said David Horwitz. 'No gardener, no roofer cleaning gutters, no tree spraying, no snow removal, no exterior painting every six or seven years.'

Mike Wright and Lin Drury are also enjoying the city life.

Halstead Property, a Manhattan real-estate firm, recently sold the couple a 900 square-foot co-op in the Inwood Hills area of Manhattan. Their new place is smaller than the 1,100 square-foot townhouse they called home in Ossining, New York.

A writer by profession, he said his motivation for moving to Manhattan was not just to downsize, but to be closer to his wife's job as an associate professor of nursing at Pace University, New York City and Westchester."