What is the difference between downsizing and right-sizing?

Downsizing generally means moving to a smaller home specifically to reduce space, cost and maintenance, while right-sizing is a broader term for moving to whatever size and layout actually fits a household's current life stage, sometimes smaller and occasionally about the same size with a better floor plan. A retiree moving from a large family home into a single-level layout is downsizing; a family swapping a poorly laid out house for one the same size with fewer stairs is right-sizing. Joel Boss uses whichever framing matches the client's actual goal.