South facing garden - WIBU

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Bit of back story - our house sold back in October, we found one (south facing garden) and the sale was going through but our vendor pulled out in December (his wife decided she didn’t want to move). We then carried on looking from January but haven’t found anything - has to be 3/4 bedrooms and DH is adamant it must have a south facing garden. Is he being unreasonable that he won’t even consider a house that doesn’t have a south facing garden? Or is it sensible he’s covering all bases?

It’s driving me bloody mad now.. I spend my life on rightmove!

Just wanting others opinions on whether I’m being unreasonable thinking he’s dragging it out now?

Thank you for all of your comments.

We had our offer accepted on a gorgeous detached house with a south facing garden today! It has a huuuuuuge conservatory but it has adapted glass so that it’s not a freezer in winter and an oven in summer and ticks all of the boxes.

Thanks again for all of your input!

It had to be S facing for me, great if you like gardening as you can grow beautiful flowers and veg easily and if you live in the NW like I do sunny days are few and far between so need to be made the most of. Congratulations on having your offer accepted!

Congrats on the offer being accepted!

There's an app called LightTrac where you can see exactly how much sun any property will get, it's great.

We have an east-west house. Perfect. Sun in the morning lighting up one side of the house and sun in the evening and as we are on the end of the street with nothing blocking our light we get a bit of sun as it sits south. We see stunning sunsets. I actually wouldn’t want I directly south facing garden unless it had trees for some shade as it makes the garden too hot and kids struggle to play out in the summer

I agree with your DH. I used to have a north facing. Couldn't sit out in the afternoon and evening BBQs were freezing. The front of the house was pavement so couldn't sit out there.

I ended up with south facing house, without it being on my wishlist, and I really appreciate being able to sit out any time of day, it's wonderful.

I've had 2 houses with South facing back garden and the sun is always hone shortly after tea when I want to sit out and chill. We had to move to a spot further and further towards the bottom.

So although it's lovely I like and my lifestyle thanks to work means I want a garden with evening sun above all day Sun and that's not a South facing one.

Congrats on having your offer accepted :)

Our house has a N facing garden, but the only rooms at the back of the house are the kitchen and the back of the large lounge/diner downstairs, plus the bathroom and shower room upstairs. Our lounge is triple aspect, so we still get sun throughout the day, and the bedrooms look out either east/west and one looks south, so they all get sun. Our garden is fab, as it gets sun on different bit throughout the day and in the summer there's always a bit of shade if the kids want it. I definitely don't understand people who say north facing houses are dark. I guess it depends if the house has been designed with that in mind or not....

My garden is north facing and it gets loads of sun. We live in a normal suburban street, but there are large ish gardens to the left, right and behind ours. It means that there is little casting a shadow.

I'm with your dh, it's south/west or nothing for me. First thing on the estate agent brief.

We have an east west house but a massive tree with a TPO blocks the sun from mid afternoon.
I'd be very much more careful about checking light and sunshine throughout the day if we ever move again.

Direction of garden wasn't even on my list but the sun always seemed to be shining in the garden when we viewed. I've since learned it's SW facing.

On a related note, I feel your pain re garden location stipulation. I was in a similar boat with DH insisting that the new house had to be in a Virgin media area! Perfectly good houses dismissed outright as he'd consult the Rightmove broadband checker... FFS!

Our first 2 houses had south facing gardens, current one has a North facing one...it's the only thing I hate about the house

Am I the only person who doesn't mind how the garden faces - or whether she has a garden in the first place? The house we're buying has a tiny yard mostly taken up by the kitchen extension. The 'yard' faces north. Not a problem as there's no space to sit out anyway. The living/dining room is open plan dual aspect, the front part is south facing. Not sure how it all looks in different weathers but we prefer rooms to be cosy and dark unless we're doing hobby stuff in them that requires light. Can't stand getting glare from sunshine when I'm working! Plus we hate hot summers too, I get heatstroke really easily! Top temp for me is about 22 degrees, otherwise I'm lying in a cold bath. We plan to have children and I guess a small garden would be nice for that but we have parks nearby. I grew up without a garden. I hate eating/drinking outside because of bugs. We've lived in apartments for so long that a garden was the bottom of the list for essentials that we know we need, the market here is fairly fast and there's so much competition for the houses with more space/gardens, so things were going above our budget too.

I hope everything goes okay with your house though OP, it does sound lovely for suiting your needs!

One thing I quite like about Our north facing Garden (which as I said always has sun somewhere or other) is that on a hot day, walking into the kitchen feels instantly cool. The front of the house is very sunny.