Why do house builders do such tiny gardens?!

[LizzieMint]

Obviously I know why they think it's a good idea, but why can't they see it's not? We looked round a new build house, large family house, 5 bedrooms and the garden was so small you could almost stretch your arms out and touch the wall and the fence at the same time. I think our current garden is small and this one was about a quarter the size. And the estate agent couldn't understand why they'd sold all the other houses but none of the 5 beds had sold. Duh!!!

It's ridiculous but it's all about money and squeezing as many homes onto a plot as they can. The rooms in newbuilds are generally small too. I wouldn't buy one if I had the choice.

It's why we've never considered a new build. I want to be able to have garden furniture and swings and stuff in the garden and also not be completely overlooked by over crowding neighbours houses

I think it's due to new housing developments having to be within a particular density for planning regs. E. G. To be granted planning they have to have x number of houses in a space. I agree it sucks though. We saw a lovely 5 bed house which was great but had no garden, not ideal if you have DCs.

The development we live on is about 10 years old and none of the gardens are huge but they are big enough for children to play in and we have a tree and a swing and so on, it's very nice. I agree some new builds have tiny patches of ground. Awful!

We have a development like that, at the top of our street. It's small and right next to a main road, so families are hardly going to be happy about their kids playing in the street because a 5 bedroom family house has a garden about the size of the back yard that our 2 bed terrace had before the kitchen was built (was also have a garden, across the road, so loads more land). Oddly enough, the builder of that development has just gone bust.

There's another one being built across the road, but this one actually has lots of allocation for affordable housing, bungalows etc. The planned gardens are massive, in comparison.

We live in a new build at the moment, albeit one that was built 15 years ago, and we're not overlooked and the garden is big enough for a swing but that's all. However the house has been extended twice (not by us) so obviously have lost garden to that. But I think our garden is the absolute minimum size for a family home, I just couldn't believe how laughably small this new house's garden was!! It's annoying because it was perfect in every other way and if it had been small but not ridiculous, we'd have overlooked it because of the other factors.