Bungalow on an awkward plot - to buy or not?

[RusBun]

We are deliberating whether to buy a corner plot bungalow we have seen as our last home (we are 60 year olds). The house seems OK, built in the 80-s, in sound condition and spacious enough, but the back garden is small and shallow – only 7m (23ft) deep and 14m (46ft) wide. The garden backs into other shallow neighbours’ gardens, has no trees around it and feels rather confined. I love gardens that back into woods or have trees around them.

The shallow garden does not give scope for extension. The garage with a driveway are awkwardly positioned from the other side round the corner, so it is a bit of a walk with your shopping.

In addition, the chimney is placed between the kitchen and a lounge, protruding into the kitchen, making it difficult to fit a kitchen or take a wall out to create an open plan (which is what we ultimately want). The house needs the usual renovating with a new kitchen, bathrooms and carpets, but this is reflected in the price, which is unusually affordable for us in this nice area.

The property has been on the market several times over the years but did not sell and we are worried it will be difficult for us to re-sell it later on if we need to.
Boo

Most of the reasonably priced bungalows I see have quite small back gardens with little scope for extension. That's par for the course with them being reasonably priced.

I don't think taking the shopping from in front of the garage to the front door will be much of a problem, but I do wonder if you will be able to sell it if you are able to knock through to create an open plan kitchen diner.

The only reason I ask is most bungalows I see in this setup look as though they have been decorated by someone quite young. Do people who need a bungalow actually like this setup?

I do, and I am 48, so I guess I am your target sales audience in 20 years. But what about the 65 plus age bracket now?

Otherwise it looks to be a good sized bungalow and I wouldn't see the garden size as a liability. In the 'reasonably priced' bracket, you either get a good sized home OR a good sized garden, but not both. So buyers will be used to seeing this.

A lot of folks will appreciate only having a small garden to maintain anyway.

Being 65+ doesn’t mean you’re in the market for haphazardly organised poky rooms. Quite the opposite, in fact - if you start having mobility issues, having a decent-sized space to move around in makes life so much easier.

I live on an estate of bungalows. They are very rarely renovated to the initial floor plan.

It's touching the house next to it

Id prefer a detached bungalow much further apart from its neighbour

This bungalow is detached, albeit only 2 meters from the next bungalow, but not overlooked. Spaced out houses are really rare in this area, unless you go into 1 million plus bracket. Semi-detached ones are very common here.

You could swap lounge/kitchen over to the other end of the house and putting bedrooms where the lounge/kitchen are presently. Then Extend out to the right hand side, towards the driveway.

alternatively go up into the loft?

garden wise, you could create a shallow private garden with large bushes and get an allotment

It seems like a good idea, but we are not looking to build an extension, the budget would not allow, and it is a lot of hassle. We have seen lots of small bungalows with large gardens that would need an extension. Also, being 60, we are specifically aiming for a ground floor living to future proof the property for it to be our last home. We are not bothered about growing vegetables, just to have a pleasant garden to sit in to enjoy the weather.

I would buy it if the road is reasonably quiet and likely to stay that way. Getting out of a driveway on a busy bend would be the only thing to put me off.

Properties dont sell if they are over-priced. Very occasionally they dont sell for another reason, like insane neighbours. I prefer more space between me and the neighbours but as you get older less space does mean less work/ paying less to your gardener.

As with any property try to visit, or at least sit outside, at different times of day to see if it's noisy or a rat run.

We visited the location 4 times now. The road is quiet, no busy traffic and the main bedroom is facing the back. The immediate neighbour is a pensioner, no noise or dogs barking around. Peaceful.

Stick bamboo or some other fast growing plant along the edge of the garden - you won't be overlooked for long.

Turn the bit of from garden by the front door into a drive and Asda dropped kerb to reduce the walk from car to house.

RSJ to support chimney would mean you could take out the chimney breast and open up living room to kitchen.

Having g recently sold a house with a similar garage set up, it will seriously reduce the people who will buy it.
As if you are buying as a retirement house, don't do it unless there is also space for you to park, or ideally create off road parking, by the front door.

There will be nothing above the chimney, so I'd have thought fairly straightforward for a builder to remove.

I like the floor plan.

the back garden is small and shallow – only 7m (23ft) deep and 14m (46ft) wide. That sounds fine. Much bigger than most family homes have been getting over the past 30 years. How much lawn mowing do you want to do?

It seems like a good idea, but we are not looking to build an extension, the budget would not allow, and it is a lot of hassle.
But you literally complained in the OP that the garden wasn't big enough for an extension. Thus implying you wanted one.

At the end of the day you need to work out what is bothering you about this house that will actually affect the way you want to live in it, not get bogged down in hypotheticals about whether you can build an extension you don't want etc.

Sorry if this comes across as abrasive but the bottom line is, it sounds like it isn't what you want, so don't buy it.

I thought the OPs comment about the potential for extension was in relation to the bungalows resale value where people would be attracted by the possibility of extending .

Surely you could open up the kitchen by removing most of the wall and leaving the bit you circled on the diagram. That would give an open plan feel without worrying about as much structural issues. I think layout looks fine otherwise

I would create the open space between the kitchen and the small bedroom and keep the sitting room separate. I have grandchildren and have often appreciated the closed door to the sitting room.
To the front, if budget allowed , I might build a storm porch and gravel the grassy bits so I could pull in and unload shopping.
Ultimately, for me, and have been looking for a bungalow for over two years, location is my first priority. Is it within a ten minute walk to amenities, then is there enough garden, then how can I use this space with my budget. I don’t think much about its resale value as it will be my last house, am in my sixties, and it won’t be my problem.

Do you have a dog or young grandchildren? I'd be concerned about possibly needing a secure fence at the front. I'd also worry about it being on the corner. Its almost like you have roads on 2 sides of the house, twice the road noise and have to pay for a very long front fence. If you grew a tall hedge though around the front- that doubles your garden space.

We were looking at bungalows and ended up with something different on a cul-de-sac. I hadn't considered the noise and impact of a through road. The cul-de-sac is so peaceful and the road used by dog walkers more than cars.

If you love it though, go for it. Factor in the cost of opening it up to widen doors and make space IF mobility becomes an issue later on.

IF you could no longer driver, what is public transport like? How far are the nearest shops? A few years back a friend bought a bungalow and within a year could no longer drive. He bought a brand new electric scooter, but didn't realise that the battery charge would only get him half way back home again!

The only grandson is a teenager and due to his dad's divorce and distance we hardly ever see him, maybe twice a year. We have a cat but no dogs, the cat is indoor one as she is Persian. I have no energy for a dog. The bus into town is just round the corner, it goes past the local shops and doctors that are 0.8 miles away, the train station for DH is half a mile away.

I would have the chimney taken out and go for open plan. It shouldn’t be difficult as it’s a bungalow.

We moved into our bungalow at around your age and have been here 16 years - we decided to remove interior walls to make it open plan with bi-fold doors, etc… it looks good and we enjoy living on one level.

If you wanted a bigger garden you might consider demolishing the garage and incorporating the land into your existing garden.

The garage is big attraction for my DH, who has lots of tools and likes DIY, so it will definitely stay. The garden would look better if it was spinned the other way around, but it is the shallowness of it that makes it feel small, not the length.

I’d buy it, looks like a practical house

I'm almost 50 and would not put me of at all .I would love a Bungalow and this is fair size so could do something with it resale in future .Big demand for bungalows here

Think you are being very sensible thinking ahead, my mum struggled with stairs etc as got older

The garden wouldn't bother me. It's big enough to enjoy outdoor space whilst not being overwhelming to manage.

The location of the garage on the other hand would concern me from a future proof point of view.

But even that could be resolved if you get online shipping delivered to your door.

The chimney could be taken out. Yes it's a bigger job than if it wasn't there but it can be done.

Other than that if it's been on the market for a while I'd put in a discounted offer.

If it's your last home I'd be tempted to go all out fitting top quality kitchen/bathroom furnishings etc.

One issue I’d have is the walk from the car to the house (with your shopping).

I was thinking maybe parking outside the front door to unload the shopping and take it in, then park by the garage. There are no yellow lines on the road

UPDATE:

We went to look at the street of the house again today. Knocked on a few neighbour's doors, had a friendly chat. Found out about their dogs and kids. At the back there is one retired lady with 4 toy poodles and one young couple with a 3 year old girl. It turned out the neighbours are lovely, there is a great community spirit, and the very next door old lady is an absolute gem of a neighbour, she invited us in, offered tea and we had a long chat, a laugh and even cuddles.

Old ladies are great for spilling the beans. Turns out the vendor is unanimously disliked in the neighbourhood and they all can't wait to see him go. When the house was on the market previously, it was him who was stalling the sale because his wife left years ago and he did not want to sell and leave the property. But now he just has to sell to go into a care home due to his illness.

The road is quiet and the vendor unloads his groceries by parking on the road by the entrance to the house (there are no yellow lines). The lady next door also kindly showed us her similar size garden, and it looked much better being arranged differently.

We felt at ease after our prodding and we are thinking of putting a cheeky offer.