Small garden - deal breaker?

[carrottbaton]

Hoping for some perspective. We sold end of last year and have been looking hard ever since - almost nothing comes on the market where we live. Been to see somewhere yesterday that is almost perfect - apart from a pretty small garden that is currently laid to patio. Is this a deal breaker? Feel I'm doing the kids a disservice as we currently have a large garden but on the other hand - do we really need that? This is a big move up the property ladder for us and would be our house for the foreseeable.

I know this is very much a first world problem.

We made a big lifestyle move-from big house/garden to town centre Victorian Semi.

It has a small garden but we love it. So much more manageable for me than the huge garden in old house-I actually garden so much more. As with PP's I use pots and it's so lovely.

We have a patio with sofas and a fire pit, and a table to eat outside. A small bit of grass-it takes me 6 mins to mow but DC, cat and dog all love it.
We have bifold doors at the back of the house and it just feels like another room.
Can you put it to lawn? Would that help?

Our last house had a small garden and it worked fine for us with young kids, both working. Easy to maintain and look pretty with flowers round the borders which was helpful as both working.

Space for a trampoline and table and chairs. We joined David Lloyd and went there after school 3 times a week so kids did swimming, sports clubs, some playdates there. Weekends we often went out to the country so not much time actually in the garden.

But it does depend how you live you life. At the moment the value of gardens has increased which I think will reverse a bit once lockdown stops and people return to offices so can probably get a better deal on house with small garden. But if say you want lots of playdates at your house then a big garden can be useful.

We had no issue getting playdates but sometimes the kids we were meeting up with would insist on their house if they had a bigger garden. I wasn't opposed to that as it saved my house from being trashed.

If this is your forever home can you see yourself happy with this garden size in retirement years?

The kids will fit into what ever space they have. Parks and countryside can offset smaller gardens

I think it’s an average size rather then small. Location and house would be more important then garden

We've lived with a tiny garden (maybe 3x2m of useable lawn, narrow patio behind width of house) since DD was 3. It's never been an issue, but 1) we work full time, 2) DD is an only child, 3) we have a huge park and the beach within a 2 minute drive/10 minute walk.

Had any of those things been different, we would have struggled.

We're just about to buy a house with a bigger garden (10x11m) but it's north facing. Currently totally laid to patio but we'll probably change a section for artificial grass, and have seating areas at the back end which gets the sun most of the day during spring/summer by the looks of things. I'm not a big gardner (lazy!) and DD is now 11, but I'm looking forward to BBQs and drinks out their with friends 😁