Huge house with tiny garden which backs onto a park ...What would you do?

[JumpingJackSprat]

We don't know much about the general area but this house has a tiny rear garden With direct access to a large park with green Space and 2 children's Play areas. Would you Consider it anyway or Would a park right outside the back of the house put you off? (as in, potential anti-Social behaviour?) If we don't live there, what's the best way to find out what an area is like to live ?

Yes I would definitely consider it.

The park near me is similar and I know a school mum that lives in one and walks her dog this way - she loves it !

The only thing that would buy me is the teenagers in the park I the summer nights and the litter they leave behind. Having said that the council are very good and its removed really quickly.

If you like this house you need to visit it at lots if different tines and days to get a better impression

How small is the garden? The houses that back on to our local park are sold at premium but it is a gorgeous park and the play equipment is in the centre away from the houses.

I certainly would consider it, without a doubt. We had a lovely house that backed onto a park and I wish we still lived there because it was great for the DCs to go out into the park from the back gate and play there.

The Garden is probably at most a couple of meters square with a sort of corridor up the side of the house which isn't very usable.

Yes, I would. Large gardens are overrated, to be honest. Immediate access to a park is ideal.

I'd still go for it as long as there is room for a shed to keep bikes etc in and somewhere to sit out.

But that really IS small. Ours is small'ish. But big enough for a small patch if grass, beds, she'd, patio, BBQ, table to eat, trampoline.

Don't you need a BBQ and a trampoline?
For an expensive house , I think the sized garden OP is talking about is a bit of a joke. Even with the possibly lovely park.

If it's London (and the side return is London's usual style), that size garden is par for the course, even with huge houses.

No, if wouldn't be for me partly because if worry about anti-social behaviour from the park and partly because gardens are important to me. We have bought a smaller house than was ideal before simply because it had a stunning garden.

My boys need a garden otherwise they would drive me bananas through the summer hols.

The house isn't expensive really - definitely cheap for the size of the house. There would be room for a little table to sit at, tiny patch of grass and space for some plant pots. I would love a bigger garden than that but its just balancing the size of the house against location, garden, parking etc. It needs work but it could be beautiful and our mortgage would be tiny.

at teenagers being the antisocial ones. It's the little kids (3 under 7) in the garden next to ours which screech and scream so much we can't sit out in peace.

OP, I personally would go for a house with a decent sized garden so that your children can play out with minimal supervision.

Definitely agree about visiting it to find out whether any problems with anti social behaviour especially as nights getting lighter and warmer. I have a friend whose experience of living by a park was made a nightmare by groups of pissed up teenagers but on the other hand, we have a local park where there are no problems at all!

We have a small garden but the kids don't spend any time in it now they are a bit older (6 & 9). They prefer playing in the street with the other kids!

You can make a small garden look really nice.

We have traded an average house with massive garden to a much bigger house with a much smaller garden on purpose, as we were sick of the garden maintenance and our dcs 12 and 14 don't play in it anymore.

agree with "Large gardens are overrated"

We have a mini mortgage too, which more than makes up for a bigger garden.

There are 3 parks plus countryside within minutes walk, but not quite at the end of the garden.
That wouldn't bother me as long as the park looked well maintained and well used by a variety of people, including teens (e.g mine!) as they need somewhere to hang out with their mates, play football etc too Some parks are locked at night around here.

a neglected park would be more likely to put me off.

Sounds perfect to me! basically the park is your garden and the weeding and mowing is someone else's problem. I would pounce on a house such as you describe like a shot if I could afford it.

We back onto a park, though no direct access through our fence.

It's a nice, very well maintained, well used and policed park. It's gates are locked at dusk to discourage anti-social behaviour. There are some bars nearby and there'd be a risk of people just sitting out drinking in the park in the late evening, or walking through noisily on their way home otherwise. I'd have thought teens might go in there regardless but I'm not aware of that happening.

The good points are that we don't have to cross any roads to get into the park, which will be great for dd going to play by herself when a bit older.

Also, we're not overlooked at the back and look out onto some lovely big trees, very relaxation-inducing. We're overlooked sideways into the garden by neighbours but we're not staring into anyone else's back windows and we never will be, as the park will be protected against development. No noise or unsightly gardens or rubbish from 'backed onto' neighbours either.

We do get all sorts of council-run events going on in there, not in the area immediately behind us but near enough to hear clearly, all daytime or early evening, up to about 10pm latest: fireworks, concerts, a fairground.

The distance between us and these events - our garden is dunno, 20-25 metres long, then event areas are probably 100m away either side - makes it ok. If they were right behind us, I'm not sure we'd get dd to sleep at bedtime those nights.

On sunny days there are people everywhere but that's quite a nice noise and the fence means they're not peering in.

I'd check the council's events listings, check if there's an active 'friends of' group, have a good look around at different times of day, ask local estate agents, shop-keepers and the council about how the park is used, look up crime stats by area and ask about them - hard to interpret, you may see positive but not very relevant results but lots of the same thing would tell you something.

I'd go for it. Sounds great.

Unless you want a big garden for the adults, then it's something you won't need in a few years time and you have a park right on your doorstep which will satisfy the children, so great.

As mentioned before, have a good look around the area at different times - a Friday or Saturday night might be good idea a few times so you can see if there's anything you're worried about. Can't remember the website, but as said you can check local stats for your postcode and compare it to others in the area. Also, as mentioned speak to local people, shopkeepers, people waiting at bus stops (they will know area well if they don't use a car much!).

Thanks everyone I'm glad it wasn't a unanimous no don't do it! We've got some more to view so will add that to the "definitely consider" list. It's a good 20- 30k cheaper than everything else in this area.

It is cheaper because it is really a large flat. Round here a bigger house would not sell without suitable outside space to balance the building. Do you never entertain outside? Or would you do that in the park too? As adults we use our garden and would hate not to have one we could entertain or lounge around in. My children would not think a public park was the same as their own space. It would need to be very cheap in my view and I would have a bigger mortgage to get more space. A tiny mortgage is hardly going to be huge with the addition of £20-30k is it? How long has it been on the market?

If it's a large house on a very small plot that would put buyers off, and particularly the family market. You couldn't have younger kids using the park as their garden unless you were with them, so not good if you want to make dinner and let them play outside.

It depends where it is. Most London properties are not particularly disadvantaged price wise by small gardens. Large outdoor spaces are very much the exception; desirable but not necessarily expected.

There's small and there's virtually non -existent however!

Sneak out in the night and steal some park to make your garden bigger.

It would be great for older DCs to have the park on their doorstep. It means you get all the fun of a big garden with none of the maintenance!

How old are your dc? For me I wouldn't want a garden they couldn't play in if they were young as you will spend all your outside time in the park watching them.
Also will you have much privacy or can anyone from the park see right into your garden?
If you want to have a pet in the future a small garden won't allow for that and if the park is noisy you won't ever get any peace on nice days.
We moved from an estate with a tiny garden as it was so noisy and overlooked. Now we live in the country and I could go outside in my pants if I wanted and noone would see. (I don't tho honest!)
It's fab and the kids can play out while I cook tea or do laundry etc and I don't feel like I have to be out with them every second. They are both pre school but I know they are safe and they have so much space to play and make noise.
Moving to our previous house with postage stamp garden was the worst thing we ever did!