09/01/2026
The Downsizers and the Runaway Patio Home
Remember 2021?
It was the year the real estate market seemed to completely lose its mind.
Homebuyers of all kinds watched the market run away from them in real time.
People who had been watching for months finally worked up the courage to jump in, only to discover there were 15 other buyers standing on the diving board with them.
“Oh well. We missed that one. We’ll get ’em next time.”
Except next time was just as bad.
Every beautiful new listing that checked the boxes seemed to turn into a gang fight with a dozen bidders. And every time, the price seemed to move a little further out of reach.
Then something really painful started happening.
A buyer would look back at a house they had thought was expensive in January and realize that, six months later, that exact same house was now worth 15–20% more.
The goalposts had moved.
For a lot of people, that was enough to make them retreat.
And these weren't people who had casually decided to move. Many had spent a year researching neighborhoods, scrolling through Zillow, going to open houses, talking to friends and agents, and mentally preparing themselves for the financial and emotional sacrifice of moving.
They had sold themselves on the future.
They could see the cookouts on the new patio.
The first-floor laundry.
The bigger kitchen where Thanksgiving dinner would finally happen the way they imagined it.
They had finally gotten comfortable with the price they would have to pay for that new life.
And then, six months later, the house they thought was already expensive was $100,000 more expensive.
The equation they had finally become comfortable with no longer worked.
So many buyers simply stepped off the field.
Some went back to renting. Some decided to stay put. Others decided that if they were going to spend that kind of money, they might as well remodel the house they already owned.
The market had run away from them.
We haven't really seen that phenomenon again on a broad scale since 2021.
But I think we're seeing a version of it happening right now—and this time, it's happening to a very specific group of buyers.
The downsizers.
More specifically, the Baby Boomer looking for the elusive one-story patio home.
The Patio Home Problem
For the last four or five years, we've been watching this demographic approach the idea of downsizing.
And, honestly, as agents, we had become a little jaded about it.
The Baby Boomers are an enormous generation, and downsizing was everywhere.
It was the topic of conversations with clients, friends and family.
“We really need to get into something smaller.”
“We're done with the stairs.”
“We don't use half this house.”
“We need to start thinking about it.”
But very few people actually pulled the trigger.
And after watching this play out over and over again, I think we finally figured out why.
The math didn't make sense.
A couple would look at their 2,100-square-foot, two-story home and realize they could sell it for, say, $500,000.
Then they'd start looking at 1,500-square-foot ranches and patio homes—and discover that those were also $500,000.
Same money.
Half the house.
Or maybe they owned a 3,000-square-foot two-story worth $650,000 and discovered that a 1,900-square-foot ranch in the neighborhood they wanted was also $650,000.
Or a 3,800-square-foot house for $800,000...
..and a 2,500-square-foot patio home for $800,000.
You get the idea.
The value equation simply didn't compute.
And honestly, I don't blame them.
If you've owned your house for 30 years, raised your kids there, built a life there and have a tremendous amount of equity, it's pretty hard to convince yourself that you should sell that house and pay the same amount of money for something half the size.
So they waited.
And waited.
And then something began to change.
Then They Started Jumping
One by one, the first wave of Baby Boomers began reaching their mid-70s.
And suddenly the reasons for moving became a lot more compelling.
The stairs weren't getting any easier.
The basement wasn't getting any less full of 30-year-old kids' stuff.
And they started realizing something else:
They weren't really living in a 3,000-square-foot house.
They were living in about 1,200 square feet of it.
The rest was a collection of closed doors, unused bedrooms and rooms they hadn't entered in months.
The idea of downsizing started to feel less like giving something up and more like gaining something back.
So they started moving.
But there was a problem.
While they were waiting, the equation had changed.
The patio home they thought was overpriced in 2024 at $600,000 might now be $700,000 in 2026.
The big two-story house they need to sell has certainly appreciated too.
But here's the interesting part:
The patio homes and updated one-story homes they want have been appreciating faster.
And now the downsizer is experiencing a little taste of what buyers experienced in 2021.
The market is running away from them.
And I'm Not Sure It's Going to Stop
Here's where I think things get particularly interesting.
We're heading into a period where an enormous number of people are going to reach the age when downsizing becomes less of a “someday” conversation and more of a “we should probably do this now” conversation.
At the same time, we have a pretty limited supply of the product they actually want.
They don't necessarily want a condo.
They don't necessarily want a big new subdivision 20 minutes farther north.
They want the updated ranch.
The patio home.
The first-floor primary suite.
The low-maintenance lifestyle.
And, perhaps most importantly, they want to stay where they already live.
They want Worthington.
They want Arlington.
They want the Linworth/Olentangy corridor.
They want Columbus taxes.
They want to stay close to their friends, their doctors, their churches, their kids and grandkids, their favorite restaurants and the places they've spent the last 30 years building a life around.
Could they move to North Powell?
Sure.
Galena?
Absolutely.
Jerome Village?
Of course.
But for many of these buyers, that isn't really the point.
Moving 20 minutes farther out isn't simply a real estate decision.
It's a completely different lifestyle.
And they're not necessarily interested in starting over somewhere else.
The Bad Arbitrage
That's what makes this so interesting.
The typical large two-story home they're trying to sell is plentiful.
There are thousands of them.
The updated one-story home they're trying to buy?
Not so much.
And replacing that inventory isn't cheap.
New construction costs are high, land is expensive, and building a new $650,000 patio home in the neighborhoods where these buyers want to live may simply not pencil out.
The replacement cost for the $650,000 patio home they want might be closer to $800,000 or $900,000.
That's a pretty big problem to solve.
And it creates what I think is a fascinating—and increasingly painful—arbitrage for the downsizer.
**Sell the big house.
Buy the small house.
And somehow, the small house keeps getting more expensive relative to the big house.**
That's the part I'm watching.
Because I don't think this is simply a story about Baby Boomers wanting to downsize.
It's a story about supply and demand colliding with geography, lifestyle and demographics.
And when you put all of those things together, I think the humble little patio home may become one of the most interesting—and competitive—segments of the Columbus real estate market over the next several years.
The people who have been talking about downsizing for the last five years are finally ready to do it.
The problem is that the house they want has been running away from them.
And unlike 2021, when the entire market was running away from everybody... this time, it's the patio home that's doing the running.
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