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Downsizer Calculator

The Downsizer Equity Calculator

What does downsizing actually leave you?

Most downsizers know what their home is worth. Very few know what's left after selling costs, stamp duty and the next purchase. Put your figures in and watch it resolve — then read the part underneath about where you actually live between the two moves, because that’s the question that stalls people, not the money.

Your numbers appear as you type. No email needed to see them.

Your situation
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A single-level apartment with lift and two car spaces in the eastern suburbs. Not sure? Leave it and I'll bring real comparables to the call.

Adjust the cost assumptions
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GST of 10% is added to the selling commission automatically — agents quote ex GST, and it's payable either way. Enter the other figures as the amount you'd actually pay.

Your plan
Freed up by the move
$0
Cash left after every cost of selling and buying.
See how it breaks down
Next home Stamp duty Costs Mortgage Freed up
Sale price
$0
Commission (inc GST), marketing, legals
$0
Mortgage discharged
$0
Net proceeds
$0
Next home
$0
NSW transfer duty
$0
Legals, reports, moving
$0
Freed up
$0

What to do with the Net Equity to secure your retirement?

There are many facets to having a comfortable retirement — best to talk to a financial adviser to see what strategy needs to be put in place to best suit you.

The question the calculator can’t answer

Where do you live between the two moves?

This is the part that stops most downsizers, and it has nothing to do with the numbers above. Sell first and you may have nowhere to go. Buy first and you’re carrying two properties. It’s the same trap an upsizing family walks into — except they’re thirty-five, they’ll take a six-month rental and shrug it off. At seventy, with a house you’ve been in for thirty years, moving twice isn’t an inconvenience. It’s the whole reason people put this off for another year, and then another.

Sell first

You know your number to the dollar and you buy with cash behind you. Vendors take you seriously and you can move fast when the right place finally appears.

Where do you live? Wherever you can find on six weeks’ notice. Nothing suitable comes up in time, so it’s a rental, a storage unit, and packing the house twice.

Buy first

You secure the home you actually want, at your pace. For a north-facing single-level apartment that trades once every few years, this is sometimes the only way to get it.

Where do you live? In your home, but as a forced seller. Bridging runs while you hold both, and buyers can smell a deadline — that costs more than the bridge does.

So is there a better way?

Both at once is the winner.

Off-market first. One move. Peace of mind.

  • +Both tracks start on day one — the search and the sale preparation run together, never one after the other
  • +Off-market on both sides: early access to properties before they list, your home shown quietly to agent databases and pre-qualified buyers
  • +Purchase secured on flexible settlement terms, funded by a deposit bond or the released sale deposit
  • +Exchanges days apart and settlements aligned — the purchase never settles before the sale
  • +A removalist with storage as the safety net, so a few days’ gap costs you nothing and you still pack only once
  • +Around eight weeks from kick-off to exchange, rather than the three to six months most downsizers spend moving twice

With all of this in mind, the Downsizer Smart Plan was born.

The next step

So how do you do it?

A downsize splits into three parts. You can stop after any one of them.

  1. 1

    The pre-planning call Free

    Twenty minutes on the phone. Whether a downsize stacks up for you at all, a realistic range on your home, which way I’d sequence the move, and the risks in doing it that way — the ones worth planning around before you commit to anything. If the numbers say stay put, I’ll tell you that.

  2. 2

    The planning $995 + GST

    The Downsizer Smart Plan — an end-to-end project plan for your move, built for your situation and put in writing.

    • +The comparables. What your home should sell for, on real recent sales, not a computer estimate.
    • +The buy and sell numbers. Both sides costed to the dollar, including the stamp duty most people leave out.
    • +The project plan. The whole downsize sequenced, from the first appraisal to the day you unpack.

    $1,094.50 including GST, paid once. Engage me as your buyers agent and the full $995 is credited back against my fee.

  3. 3

    The execution Separate engagement

    My end-to-end downsize service. Buying and selling run as one campaign rather than two, with the declutter expert, the selling agent and your financial adviser all working to one timetable — held by me, not by you. And it runs at your pace: nothing rushed, nothing forced, no part of it starting before you’re comfortable.

Free · 20 minutes · no obligation

Start with a call

  • +A realistic range on your home, from what’s actually sold near you recently.
  • +Whether the figures you just ran stack up — and what I’d change about them.
  • +Which way I’d sequence your move, and the biggest risk in doing it that way.
  • +A straight answer on whether it’s worth moving at all. If the numbers say stay put, I’ll tell you that.

Nothing to prepare. Your figures come with you.

Start with a conversation

Twenty minutes on the phone, no charge. Tell me where you’re at, I’ll tell you what I’d do in your position, and you’ll know whether the Smart Plan is worth building for you. If it isn’t, I’ll say so.

No charge for the call and nothing to prepare. Your figures come across with this, so we're not starting from scratch.

Would rather just talk? 0412 424 240

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Your figures came through with it. Pick a time below and I'll have a view on your street ready when we speak.

Or call me directly on 0412 424 240.

General information only. This calculator is an estimating tool, not personal financial, tax or legal advice. It doesn't account for your full circumstances, and it deliberately makes no projection of your retirement income — that's a question for a licensed financial adviser, and I'm glad to work alongside yours. Duty rates are the Revenue NSW 2026/27 thresholds and change each year with CPI; verify final figures with your conveyancer. Downsizer contribution eligibility is set by the ATO and has conditions beyond those modelled here. Nothing here models the Age Pension: releasing equity converts an assets-test-exempt home into assessable cash or super, which can materially change an entitlement, and only Services Australia or your adviser can tell you by how much. Anthony Johnston is a licensed real estate agent acting on the buy side, and does not hold an Australian Financial Services Licence.