Is Your Home Working For You — Or Just Costing You More?

There’s a question I ask every client at the start of our rightsizing conversation: Is your home still serving your life and lifestyle, or have you been quietly serving it?

New data from the Wall Street Journal makes that question more urgent than ever. Between 2019 and 2025, the cost of owning a home has increased across every major category — emergency repairs up 175%, home maintenance up 85%, insurance up 72%, property taxes up 31%. And according to Angi survey data, average annual spending on home improvement, maintenance, and repairs has climbed from $9,000 in 2019 to $12,500 in 2025 — a 39% jump.

That’s not a blip. That’s a structural shift.

And it’s not just maintenance. HOA fees have risen 51% since 2021 (Vantaca). Labor and materials costs keep climbing. U.S. inflation currently sits at 4.2% — more than double the Fed’s traditional 2% target — meaning every other line in your budget is under pressure too.

What does this mean for longtime homeowners?

If you’ve owned your home for 20, 30, or 40 years, you’ve likely built substantial equity — which is genuinely good news. But equity locked in a home that costs more every year to maintain, insure, heat, and repair isn’t automatically working for you. It may be actually working against your financial flexibility, your peace of mind, and your next chapter.

Rightsizing isn’t about downsizing. It’s about making an intentional, thoughtful decision about whether the home you’re in still fits the life you want to live — and if not, helps you piece together what a better fit might look like now and going forward.

The families I work with aren’t in crisis. They’re simply at a point in life where the calculus has quietly shifted. The house that made perfect sense at 45 may not be the right answer at 65. The question isn’t whether to move — it’s whether not to move is the more expensive — and too frequently — desperate choice.

If you’re curious what rightsizing might look like for your household, I’d welcome the conversation.

Cheryl J. Alpert

MetroWest REALTOR® | Rightsizing Consultant | Coldwell Banker Realty