Big garden vs. large public green space (woods + playing field) on doorstep

[FiveSecondsMore]

If you had a choice between a house with a generously-sized private garden but 15+ minutes' walk from the nearest nice public green space, or a house with a very small garden, but two minutes' walk from a lovely, decently-sized wood with an adjoining large grassy field for playing games/sitting in the sun etc., which would you choose?

To be more specific about the small garden, it's about 90 sq m, currently comprising mostly well-kept patio/decking, with plenty of space for garden furniture and socialising. There is also a small area of grass, but not enough for e.g. a climbing frame. Overall it looks like a nice entertaining space, great for BBQs, but not sure how well it will meet the need of kids if/when that becomes relevant.

A, private garden every time. You're not going to drag all your food/drink/toys to the field when you could just open the door and step outside and sit down or start playing.

That is too small...
Go for a bigger garden, trust me, you won't regret it.
Remember land has inherent value too for things like future proofing extensions, home offices, parking, not just garden for kids.

I would go for A (bigger garden). My family (especially the children) use the garden every day in the summer: camping, trampoline, somewhere for our pets to play.

Good points by Nettleskins

Big garden means:

You are further away from neighbours
You can develop the planting privacy more and still have light
Better for entertaining
Better for DC
You can position unsightly DC play stuff out of view
Office
Storage
Extension
Spontaneous / convenient from back door
If you don’t like gardening you can make it low maintenance

Public space - dog shit, litter, possible antisocial behaviour, inconvenient

Big garden. I wouldn’t like to have to share space to be outside and relaxing.

A for me.

Ask me this a week ago and I would have said A. But we just feel in love with a house with a very small garden and a large garden was previously one of our top priorities.

The point I am trying to make is if you are having to ask yourself this question then you haven't found the one yet.

B, I'd rather have the woods on my doorstep. 15 minutes walk is not far from the woods either so A would be nice too.

Currently no kids, but expecting that to change in 2-4 years assuming no issues. We don't have any particular interest in gardening at the moment, but then we haven't actually had gardens since we were children, so wouldn't necessarily know. We're both very busy with work and other hobbies, though, so I don't see us suddenly becoming super interested (but we'd be prepared to outsource garden maintenance to some extent if need be).

It's so difficult because there's a lovely, well-proportioned house in a great area, literally a two minute walk from a lovely and popular wood with a playground and playing fields, which are great to walk and laze in. But the house itself has this small garden, which at the moment probably doesn't matter to us too much, but we're wondering if it's going to become a really big deal when kids come along. Because we don't have kids yet, it's really hard to predict, and feels like a big dilemma.

90sqm doesn't sound that small to me. My garden is 100 ft long by about 15ft wife, so 1500 sq ft so about 140sqm. That's plenty for a shed, patio, washing line, a wildlife bit, multiple flower beds and more grass than I enjoy mowing. By town sizes I have a fairly large garden, obviously tiny compared to very rural places though.

2/3 the size would still be quite a lot, and I think enough to fit a slide or swing or even both in - not enough for a full massive wooden climbing frame though. It sounds like maybe the current garden would be big enough if you could convert a little more patio back into lawn?

Also, I should've mentioned, it's a five bedroom house, so I worry that the garden may be disproportionately small. We both like lots of space, so thought we might as well move somewhere family-sized now if we can afford it, rather than wait until we absolutely need to. But I don't know what twists and turns our lives will take once we have children, so it's possible we won't end up wanting to stay for many years (impossible to predict right now), and that makes me worry about the resale value. I don't want the garden to put a ceiling on the price.

Big garden
Smaller gardens tend to be more overlooked and feel claustrophobic. It may be that you overlook a field though which might make me think differently.

Big garden every time. Yout own private space to do as you wish.

And honestly, that garden is tiny, genuinely my patio is bigger.

Private garden. With small kids it’s so nice to be able to send then into the garden while I work in the kitchen and keep an eye on them. I also know there’s no dog poo in my garden and all the plants are child friendly. We do go to local parks and forests but that’s much more effort and more of a big trip. Some days just getting out the house with small kids can be a challenge.

Other than the big garden, do you actually like house A? You don't seem to mention any other positives.

Personally a bigger garden has prompted our move since having our son as public parks are lovely but require you to physically go with them until they're much older, climbing frames at home can be used while you're doing other jobs (age dependent) or for 5 minutes between other activities.

A, because then you get the benefit of both garden and public area.

What’s the difference between the houses?
What’s the length / width of the 2 gardens?

If the garden wasn’t too overlooked I’d choose the small garden, unless one of you wants to get into gardening.
We have a huge garden and it’s so much upkeep. If we ever move again I’d go for a small private garden with woods nearby any day.

I’d go house A, we struggled to sell our last house based on the garden being too small for the size of the house. The way it had been previously extended and a corner plot made it 2 triangles. Didn’t see it as a problem when we bought it. Also area dependent I’m not sure I’d let my 8 year old go alone and definitely not my 5 year old to a park I can’t see. I also do most of the cooking in the summer whilst they play in the garden.

I’d probably let the better house be the deciding factor.

We have a big garden. Moved here when Dd was 2yo. She’s now grown up. She rarely played in it. She’s not an outdoorsy type of person. We’re not gardeners so it’s all grass and is a pain to mow. We do have chickens down the bottom which is nice and I’m about to install a garden office as we’ve run out of space in the house. The dog likes the big garden.

But I certainly wouldn’t have been adverse to a smaller garden. But then if you have kids and they’re more outdoorsy/sort of kids who’d enjoy playing football in the garden etc then a big garden would be great. Certainly up to about 11yo you can turf them out into the garden fairly unsupervised which you couldnt at that age with a wood next door. Though when they’re older you possibly could depending how safe the area is.

I would go for a bigger garden every time. I have two small children and it was our priority with buying a new house. Like you, we bought our first house when we didn't have children. We didn't think too much about the garden, but it served us well - it was around 17m x 10m. It wasnt huge but enough to run around and have a few bits of play equipment.

Based on this, I decided that this was my bare minimum when we bought our new house. So many are tiny! And in factmamy of my friends live in houses with tiny gardens and don't seem to mind. Our new house is around 28m x 8m, sokuch longerbut narrower. I dont think a 15 minute walk to the park is too bad actually - we have one slightly closer but the best one a 20 minute walk away. At the weekends we usually get in the car and visit woodlands. It would be lovely to have one on the doorstep, but not at the expense of a garden.

If it’s 5 bed with such a small garden I am assuming it’s tall terrace / semi town house amongst others? If so and is currently priced appropriately then resale is not an issue. However I expect that there is little light in such garden if it is surrounded by other tall houses? Which way does it face?

If there are other gardens of the same size adjoining you will be able to hear conversations and have little privacy when you are all out in your gardens.

But if its a detached then a garden that size is disproportionately small and will I would imagine harder to shift - is it priced relatively low now?