By downsizing their homes, 50+ retirees in Ontario are looking to reduce year-round maintenance, lowering their cost of living, opening up opportunities to travel, and otherwise help finance their retirement.

That’s the word from a new market research survey conducted by Angus Reid, which found that 60 percent of those surveyed (Ontario homeowners 50 years old and up) plan to sell their existing homes and buy or rent smaller homes sometime during the next five years. The survey also suggests that most of these folks (53 percent) don’t want to live in a highrise apartment or condo block.

And nearly 80 percent see this as their last big move – so they’re looking for a community that will continue to serve their needs for years to come. This suggests that a lot of Ontario people preparing for retirement are searching for a place that will offer an active lifestyle in a true neighourhood setting, with the opportunity to age in place and maintain their independence well into the future.

The online survey, which was commissioned by a Toronto retirement community developer, polled 508 randomly selected folks in the 50+ cohort who currently own their homes (88 percent of them own detached homes.)

The margin of error—which measures sampling variability—is +/- 4.4 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The results have been statistically weighted according to age, gender and region. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.