Would buying a townhouse with a small overlooked garden be a mistake?

[Blackletterofthelaw]

We have found the perfect 4 bed townhouse in our current village, offers the extra space we need (have two young children) and at a price that is affordable. The house is in a smallish 'luxury' development and has two play areas so has been designed for families. However the garden is small and overlooked with the gardens opposite backing onto our garden. All the houses overlooking including ours have terraces and balconies. A compromise worth making? We love the house and location. Picture attached of development layout, the house we are considering is the end of terrace in the row to the left of the picture. Opinions, anyone loved in similar property or scenario? Thanks

@PowerslidePanda

We have viewed it and really liked it. In an ideal world a bigger private garden would be great but probably also out of budget!

It's good that you recognise this! On Mumsnet, you'll always get people saying, "Oh, I'd never choose a house with a small garden", "I'd never choose a house with a shared drive", etc etc. All well and good if you actually have the budget to be that selective, but the reality is, most people have to compromise on something! It's a matter of prioritising your requirements.

I tend to agree with this. We live in a townhouse (Ijust consider it a terrace, personally!) but it's on a tiny development of only 6 houses and it's astonishingly well sound proofed (a builder we had in recently remarked on the excellent build quality). The gardens are small and overlooked, but the indoor space makes up for it and all our neighbours are so great that being overlooked a bit isn't an issue. It was what we could afford at the time and has provided us an incredible, low maintenance, high quality home for many years with off road parking and garaging in a very popular area that is over subscribed for street parking. We are considering moving, mainly because I now have more time to be outdoors and in all honesty, we just fancy something different as we have a much bigger budget, now. However, for the OP my main concern would be how built up that new development seems. I realise that comparatively our houses are quite a small/"exclusive" development in a very nice area, so although the townhouse aspect wouldn't put me off, I would do a fair bit of research on just how many houses will be there.

It’s a tough one. I moved last year from a 3 storey house. I loved the house. It was large and airy and I had no issues with the stairs. The downside was the tidy garden. Not particularly overlooked but too small for a toddler to play in. I’ve moved now to a much smaller semi with a decent sized garden and I’m much happier

We live in a townhouse, brought up our kids here etc etc. We love it. Depends on your room sizes and your development looks much more squashed in than ours but I wouldn't rule them out at all. Our house is a fantastic family home.