House buying doubts and panic after having an offer accepted

[Samdam]

Hello, I wonder if anyone can offer some advice on house buying anxiety.
DH and I have just had an offer accepted on a house that we fell in love with, we have been looking for a while and this is the first house that we really felt we could see ourselves living in. It ticked all the boxes in terms of location, size, layout, very quiet and peaceful street (which I really wanted due to currently living on a through road and hating it). The only compromise is that the garden faces southeast whereas I really wanted a sunny garden in the evenings. However, when we saw the house, it felt so right that I decided I can compromise. It's not a tiny garden - about 16m long and I hope there will be some light in the evening at the back and filtering through between the houses. but I am not sure if that will only be the case at the height of summer. There is also a northwest front small garden which is bordered by mature vegetation (i.e. has a private feel) and I thought I could always sit in that one in the summer evenings if I absolutely must have sun.We went and sold our current home and did a second viewing, still loving the house and feeling super excited. However, the moment our offer got accepted I started feeling panic and dread instead of happiness. My mind has fixated itself on the garden aspect and is convincing me that the back of the house will be very dark and we will not be able to enjoy the garden as much. The garden is actually very mature with 2 apple trees, a wild cherry tree, lots of birds and feels very safe and secluded, and that is what I loved about it. Does anyone have any views on this, is this just panic because of the big commitment or is garden orientation really that important? Does anyone here have a southeast garden and like it?
I have been in a state of total panic for the last 2 days, unable to sleep, I feel am going to get ill over this but unsure whether I will be like this with every house. The area where we are is very competitive and houses don't come up often, there are very few southwest facing streets anyway, so I feel if we pull out of this house we will be forever waiting to find the “better perfect house” and might regret it. Of all the houses on the market currently in our preferred areas, it seems like over 80% of them have north or east facing gardens. We went to see one house with the perfect garden orientation but we hated the feel overall due to it being on a busy street and behind the back of shops. DH is also very frustrated with me because we sold our current home on the premise that we have found a house we like (we had to sell ours first before our offer for the purchase could be considered seriously). I worry this is really going to affect our relationship if I insist on pulling out!

I have a SE garden. Not as long as yours! Get sun all day until around 7.30 at the moment. My front garden is walled and enclosed and gets the sun in the evening.

It sounds like you’re panicking at the commitment. Sounds like a lovely home.

It sound lovely. We have a east facing garden. Never again. (Used to have south) but south east you would get lots of sun.

So to be precise, the garden slightly ESE, maybe 10 degrees off the true SE. Even more worried now that you've said never again to an east facing garden !

Do you have a picture of the garden? People can then give you opinions on light/whether anything can block it etc?

Mine is 157 degrees. I get some of my evening light blocked by a retaining wall.

I think it’s natural to have concerns once you’ve said yes to such a huge purchase OP!

Even when I’ve looked at houses I’ve loved at the time, as soon as we start even discussing it back home I’m talking myself out of it!

My last two properties were S/E - I absolutely love it! Yes you are right less evening sun but actually in the height of summer it’s a relief to loose the sun from the house in the afternoon/ evening. The morning light is sublime on a winter morning. We have bi-folds and often have them open up until November because of the east light.

I feel your pain OP. We are about to complete on a house with a short North East facing garden. I think South East sounds fine though.

When we were looking i wanted a SW facing garden for exactly that reason, evening glass of wine in the garden. We fell in love with a house that has an East facing garden and i love it. We get the most beautiful morning sun, I've turned into a morning person sitting outside at 6.30/7am listening to birdsong. We the get full sun on the whole garden until around 6pm from May to September, and the end of the garden gets sunshine until 8pm ish. The back of the house is so sunny all day.

I also had the feeling of dread the whole way through the buying process though, i remember crying on moving day even though I loved the house so much. I also had a few panic attacks at the thought of taking on a bigger mortgage (which we can afford). I think its probably worse at the moment with so much uncertainty in the world, but if you are planning on staying a few years you can ride out any dips in the market.

My mum’s garden faces north but gets plenty of late afternoon/early evening sun as not overlooked. It really depends on the garden. And think about those lovely morning cups of tea. Bliss.

Thanks all for your thoughts. I was also at the start imagining sunny breakfasts and morning coffee but then started panicking that most of the time it will be in the evenings that I am at home and by that time the garden might feel cold and gloomy. I don't have any good photos to share but to the west/ northwest it is the house and low garage and then the next door neighbours. full height house.
Very helpful to hear from others who've had anxiety about house buying, we are planning on staying there long term so it makes it feel like such a final decision, I think that's not helping my anxiety!

We have a fully east facing back garden, and I did have doubts when we bought the house as we are keen gardeners. In fact it's so much more usable and enjoyable than our old SW facing garden, where we (and the lawn) often just fried in hot weather - and the sun disappeared behind a neighbouring house fairly early anyway.

As others have said, the eastern light is glorious in the mornings. We have bifolds, and the sunny kitchen is really uplifting. We have sun all day in most of the garden and a patio area at the bottom which is still sunny until about 8pm at this time of year. DH laughs at me now because I still say at least once a week ' I can't believe we thought this garden wouldn't be sunny...'

Well, the options are : stop finding faults with the house, withdraw your offer and hold out for an equally good house with a SW garden (may take a while..), increase your budget and buy a house with such a massive garden that there will always be sun in it regardless of orientation.

On days like today the orientation is irrelevant anyway! How wide is the garden? I reckon that in a 16m garden it would be quite late when the last of the sun disappears. Maybe you can think about putting something right at the end of the garden.

I can only say that house purchasing can be very anxiety inducing from my own experience. I love my soon to be purchase but was having panic attacks, sleep problems, more so until I decided. There is risk but I've weighed it all up after boring my friends for hours.

Hope it goes well for you whatever decision is reached. Please try not to be anxious, it will work out.

my current garden faces south and we get the full sun the whole day! in the heat of the summer our garden is actually too hot. also alot of my plants get scorched because of it. all my hanging baskets are usually dry and dead by the start of july as are the sweetpeas and beans etc.