How much value does a garden add to a property?

[Didimum]

Thinking ahead to remortgaging (next year). I was wondering if anyone had any experience or an educated guess as to what % increase you can expect on a property by adding a garden that previously didn’t have one.

We bought the house last year – a family home. The ‘back garden’ was a fully concreted space/drive way with a dilapidated double garage (unusable), open to the road. For this reason, the house struggled to sell. It sat on the market for a year and was lowered in asking price twice. It last had been sold in 1970. We turned the ‘driveway’ into a proper landscaped garden by walling it off from the road and also retained a driveway. The garden is around 900sq ft. We got rid of the garage, but do have both a loft, cellar and added garden storage.

Any ideas? Thanks!

Ask 3 estate agents to value the property

It's impossible to say because depends where you live and the price of the house, the direction of the garden, the shape of the garden etc etc

I don't think it's relevant to your question because the lender doesn't actually come round and value your property. They will do a desktop valuation based on sold prices for similar houses in the area.

A garage can add 10k or so. However a garden will add much more

Not impossible for a ballpark % increase surely, for someone with property knowledge.

Anyway, house is south east, garden is south facing and is square.

Thank you!

It’s a fairly unique property is an issue, and sold prices are few and far between.

Can do, but wondered people’s thoughts. Wouldn’t get estate agents round for a year if we do.

I don't know about price, but I think for a lot of people a garden is make or break, and they (me!) wouldn't even look at a place with no garden.

True. We were just crazy enough to take it on 🤣

Very roughly old area where houses were c£700k and 3/4 bed with families in from no or little garden to a reasonable sized garden for area (which wasn't huge) seemed to add about £100k very roughly. Maybe look on Rightmove at houses with and without gardens and see price difference especially in similar ones sold to each other. Or ask estate agent or surveyor.

A decent sized garden could add 10% but unless your house is small a 30” square garden wouldn’t add that much.

our house has a large garden in an area where most houses have a tiny patio or no garden. the agent valuing the house added about 6% of the house value (based on square footage) for the garden.

It's space that was already there so not sure how much it would add. You've obviously made it nicer but it's not an extra piece you've bought and added to the plot. But many buyers are lazy and will pay a premium not to have to do the work on it themselves.

It’s difficult to describe, but it wasn’t just a space made nicer – it was not garden at all in any sense. But I see what you’re saying based on total land of the property.

I think no garden to decent sized garden is different to small garden to large garden. That’s what I’m having trouble deducing.

Thank you, helpful.

I should add we didn’t create the garden to flip the house and cash in at all – we’re absolutely not selling in any foreseeable future. But it is interesting and I think when remortgaging in this climate, you’ve got to throw whatever you’ve got to get your LTV down.

Estate gents will value your property and give you an estimated value in writing for mortgage purposes.

Thanks, wouldn’t do this till next year as there’s no point. Just looking for opinions for now.

A nice landscaped garden will make it more attractive to some buyers , but none of them would have seen the old concrete one , so i don’t think it will increase the value much as you have not increased the size of it.
Different people like different things…. Some might like concrete and a garage ? Some like grass , flowers.

It wasn’t a concrete garden with garage. It was concreted land/driveway to side of house open to the public. I think this is different because we have still retained the concrete driveway plus added a garden. Only thing gone is the garage, which was not useable due to level of its disrepair.

We know the house struggled to sell because there was no garden, hence we know the concrete land was not attractive to essentially anyone.

For remortgage I wouldn’t say it would be very much. It’s just a desktop survey, so I don’t think the garden would register and nothing material has changed, it’s just aesthetic. They wouldn’t come and inspect the state of your decorating, and I don’t think they would be able to see you’ve improved the garden from your plans.

Getting rid of the garage may reduce the value as that would register on the plans/google earth.

It won't fundamentally alter the value as the plot (in terms of land area) is the same and the potential was there for anyone to do the same - however, in the same way that a new shiny new kitchen or bathroom would make a house more saleable and very probably drive the price up, a lovely garden will definitely add a wow-factor which people are prepared to pay more for. Whether you'll make back what you spent on doing it, I couldn't say.

I personally wouldn't buy a property without a garden, but yours did have a garden, just an ugly, unusable one. some people wouldn't buy a house without a garage, or space for one. I still think you've done the right thing as more people would want the garden than space for a garage.

But there was land for a garden. You haven’t acquired extra land for a garden, just improved and made accessible the land that was there. Which will add value in the same way that putting in a state of the art kitchen in place of a basic old 1950s set up would.