Would you buy house with overlooked garden?

[Ozster]

I have viewed a lovely house and will live in it for 10 years plus.

It has a nice big garden which is not overlooked at the back BUT...

On the left hand side there are houses on the next road over /around the bend and they directly overlook. Their gardens are small so the distance isn't that much.

The fence is quite high so they can't see into 'our' garden unless they are in their upstairs bedroom.

Would this put you off buying? The house is at the top end of our budget.

Should we offer below asking price stating this as a reason?

The house is great except for this. However I want to be able to sell in the future

Thank you

I guess it is cheeky to ask for a reduction in price.

I know most gardens are overlooked but usllay from the houses on either side?

With this house the backs of the two house directly look into the garden which three me off I guess

But it sounds like most people wouldn't care much and I shouldn't have trouble selling

Thank you all for your help.

Horse for courses. We are overlooked from every angle. Great pubs, restaurants and shops all within 150m of my door so swings and roundabouts. Although none of them are open 😭😭😭

Surely the garden just needs clever planting to create privacy

Always worth asking for a reduction

@Oblomov21 if you are in the UK it would be very very unusual to not know anyone with a garden "overlooked" in the way OP describes ie an immediate neighbour stood upstairs looking out of their window deliberately.

Every single terrace or semi would have this arrangement and most detached houses on normal streets too.

I wouldn't even think of what OP mentions as being compromise tbh.

Would a price reduction help on this case, op? It’s not something you can change, and I think if you’re not comfortable with it (and can’t do something with the garden to block views) then it would be best to find somewhere else.

I agree that most houses are overlooked (mine certainly is), but certain set-ups may feel more acceptable to you than others. There were several houses for sale on my road at the same time, some with bigger gardens (and south-facing gardens on the other side), but I liked the fact that houses behind us were not so tall and in fact directly behind us are gardens of the houses of the road ours opens onto rather than houses of the road running parallel. So, overlooked but not from directly behind. I thought a recent Your Garden Made Perfect was interesting as the couple were saying how uncomfortable they were in their overlooked garden - I thought it looked perfectly nice and quiet as it was! I’m trying to say that the ‘feel’ of a garden is personal, and you should just look elsewhere if this one makes you uncomfortable.

Most people don't offer full asking price right off the bat do they? I've only ever done it once because I really wanted the house.

I'm looking to move soon, mainly because my garden's overlooked. I can even hear one of my neighbours scream-singing, masturbating and slapping himself. Takes the magic out of balmy summer evenings really.

I live in back to back terraces, so all the gardens are overlooked by at least 8 other houses or flats. Never given it a moment's thought. I don't sunbathe in a bikini and am not carrying out a life of crime from my living room, so nothing I care if people see.

My back garden has 3 other gardens surrounding it and we're on a main road.

It's fine.

And the house you're looking at has gone up for sale at a price that reflects is location.

I could get a much less overlooked, slightly bigger house for the sane money as this one but it would lack the features that gave it the bigger price tag in the first place - mostly ones you can't change like location.

We’re a corner plot so are surrounded on all sides really. We’ve planted trees and fast growing tall shrubs over the years so I don’t feel particularly over looked anymore.

Being over looked is less of an issue than noise for me. I’m looking forward to being able to leave suburbia once the kids finish school. Suddenly being surrounded by gardens of screaming children is pretty intolerable!

I rejected a house as the gardens were 20ft, so the neighbours at the back were very close indeed. In the converted loft my daughter said she could look straight into their converted lofts (and one had an all glass dormer).
The house we went for was partially due to it being end of terrace, so the back is the side of the terrace going perpendicular, and it's all brick. Our immediate neighbours will be able to look down at our garden, but that's it.
I have a very big garden currently and I can still hear all the kids in the neighbourhood- but i like that.

Sorry superstars I didn't phrase that very well.

Many of the houses here are semis, many are terraced or cul-de-sac. Few of the houses round here are particularly overlooked. Or marginally. A bit, but not bothersome. They built them quite cleverly. Most have huge fences. Big trees. So not much overlooking.

Or terraces, but gardens not overlooked because at the bottom of their gardens is a back lane, with garages, so not badly overlooked.

Or a lot of the terraces round here, most not all, have a communal garden in the middle, so yes there are houses opposite, but they too have high fences, making up their back garden, and with trees in the middle of the communal garden, so they too don't feel very overlooked. They are! Slightly. But not so much it's particularly noticeable.

@GeidiPrimes

Most people don't offer full asking price right off the bat do they? I've only ever done it once because I really wanted the house.

I'm looking to move soon, mainly because my garden's overlooked. I can even hear one of my neighbours scream-singing, masturbating and slapping himself. Takes the magic out of balmy summer evenings really.

🤣 seriously though, what a grim mental picture 😫😬

Oblomov do folk not look out their bedroom windows where you live? It's impossible not to be overlooked.

Most houses are overlooked in some way as most can't afford a field around them ..you usually have to compromise on some,thing so it's wether the rest fits the bill for your budget !

True. I suppose they must do!

But, I'm so old, my eyesight is ok'ish, but I've never seen anyone in any of the houses opposite.

You offer what you think the house is worth to you. If you don’t think it’s worth asking price, don’t offer it. The overlooked garden is an odd reason, so I would give it as a reason to the estate agent.

Whether this tactic will work depends on the area and the market. Where I live blouses are bid up and snapped up really quickly. But if your market is slow, or of this house is overpriced and not shifting bedding under asking might work out.

Most houses in the UK have overlooked gardens!

Wow, anyone else think OP sounds like a snob?! Moat houses are overlooked!! This is how ua peasants live, OP! Go live in the countryside in a manor house if you don't want to have a house at the back of yours.

@Ideasplease322

You offer what you think the house is worth to you. If you don’t think it’s worth asking price, don’t offer it. The overlooked garden is an odd reason, so I would give it as a reason to the estate agent.

Whether this tactic will work depends on the area and the market. Where I live blouses are bid up and snapped up really quickly. But if your market is slow, or of this house is overpriced and not shifting bedding under asking might work out.

Sorry about the typos,, this site needs an edit function.

Houses not blouses. And I wouldn’t give it as a reason because it’s odd.
, and beciase the extend to which the neighbourhood is built up will have already been priced in.

I suspect what you want (I assume very large gardens so neighbours are very far away) is much more expensive in the area you are looking in.

I don't think OP is being a snob. I also think the definition of not overlooked is being taken too literally. It generally means not having houses in close proximity backing onto your garden at sides and back imo. Next door properties aren't so much the issue, unless they had a roof terrace or whatever.

I lived in a flat before I bought my house, so was desperate for a garden. I didn't realise till i moved in how important it not being overlooked was to me. My house is an end of terrace, but I'm in the corner of a cul de sac and the way the houses are positioned mean I'm barely even overlooked by my attached neighbour. On the other side only their small landing window looks over our garden. I back onto a playing field, so no issue there either.

There are gardens out there that aren't rural but have that solitary feel. It really just depends how much that means to you and how long you'd be prepared for one to come up.

I wouldn't buy a house overlooked from the rear. I only have neighbours on one side who are parallel with me, so they can see into my garden a bit from their back upstairs windows (and me theirs similarly). Absolutely no danger of anyone glancing me wandering around upstairs in the nude from the back!
However, I think now, with houses being built so close together, it is difficult to find one not overlooked even a bit, unless you want to fork out loads of dosh for your privacy.

Our garden isn't very big and on a housing estate, but right down the bottom of our garden is a blind spot from all other houses, nestled by someone's garage, it's also south facing so we use this as our seating area. Our patio is overlooked but the estate is quite clever in that the windows that over look us are the less used rooms (box room, frosted bathroom), we have no windows that overlook our garden from upstairs (which is a bit annoying) so we don't overlook other peoples gardens, quite clever really.

So are there spots you can utilise that look less exposed?