A year ago, we moved from a 5 bedroom, two storey house (which was pretty big and had a reasonable sized yard) to a 3 bedroom apartment. It's not tiny, but obviously way smaller than the house!! I thought it would be really hard living in an apartment with 2 kids, but actually it's really good. We are lucky though that they still have plenty of room to play outside and we have two huge parks nearby too.

The big thing that I love is less cleaning. Seriously, vacuuming takes no time at all. Same with mopping. I love that!! We have next to no yard maintenance and we still have a yard and also a pool (which we also don't have to maintain). It's also secure, so we don't have to worry about being broken into, and I feel so much better here when I'm alone with the kids at night.

For us it has worked well. We found the right place I guess, but really, downsizing isn't that much of a problem. And if it's going to save you money so that you can get the place you really want sooner then what have you got to lose?