Very slopped garden - worth offering?

[xxltom]

Hi,

I found a house which ticks a lot of boxes for me: close to station, not very far from the town center, chain free (not very sure why it is being sold just after 2y).

The only issue I have and don't want to waste time on viewings is related to the garden.
The house is on a hill and the garden is very steep.

Any idea how much would it cost to terrace it (I would say more than 20k)?

Link to the house: https://tinyurl.com/3dhs7szf

Thanks!

If you ended up liking the house, could you arrange a gardener to go round and look to give a quote to do the work?

We did that with a builder when we were considering a house - ended up walking away, as the cost to make the house as we'd want it was too much.

I was expecting much steeper from your description! I'd describe it as sloped rather than steep. Are the neighbours' gardens similar? If so I'd look what they've done.

My relatives have done a big job on a bigger, even more sloped garden. It's going to cost them £8,000 BUT they have done a lot of the labour themselves.

Lovely house btw.

I live near there that's a fab price for that goise!

It doesn't look that bad to me.

Really nice house.

You all convinced me to call and book a viewing.
Thanks!

How much gardening do you want to do? It's only an issue if you are very into growing things I think. I was massively put off by the wanky photos and would have avoided that estate agent like the plague for that reason, but then saw they included an outside "floor plan". Never seen that before and love it! The house itself looks lovely and like you wouldn't need to do any work.

It might not be as steep in real life as it looks in the photos.

It's nothing like as steep as the gardens around my area, just a gentle slope.
Lovely house, definitely worth viewing

Lovely house, basically a blank canvas, you could add colour or just move in and live in it, fab.
The garden doesn't look that steep, you could always do most of the work yourself, a big skip and a couple of shovels 😄
Do you have young DC?
If not, I'd definitely go and see it, report back, I'm invested

Their seems to be an alleyway to the side. It looks like the neighbours have edged their fence into your garden.

The back looks steeper than the front. I knew some people who had a garage at the back with a garden terrace on top, approximately equal to the sloping garden height. I think it needs planning permission.

My garden was much more sloped than this. I’ve got 3 terraces, the bottom patio is in the shade and a big top patio in the sun at the top and a middle area with a table and chairs. Natural stone patios and 3 retaining walls. I think it was about 16k about 3 years ago. My garden is about 7 metres wide and I’m not entirely sure of the length because of the tiers but maybe 11-12 metres long? That garden looks beautiful as it is though and the house is lovely 🥰

Another one for its not that steep ( I’ve had a back garden with. One in six gradient, it had hand rails on the path!) . You could plant it to minimise mowing on the top level quite easily.

Really like the house. One benefit of a raised garden is sunshine! The garden won’t suffer from shading by the house.

Beautiful house! We have friends with a garden like that, but bigger - they are paying just over £30k to get the garden in a useable state.

We did a small terrace in our own garden by ourselves. Our garden slopes away from the house. We used sleepers and at the highest point I think they are 3 or 4 high. (Slopes left to right as well as front to back so the retaining wall tapers to adjust for the line of the ground). It wasn't difficult in terms of how to do it, but it was hard physically. I'm not young and I found the physical effort pretty much the limit of what I was able to do. We set in steps also made of sleepers, then had builders in to lay a patio directly outside the house in nice sandstone slabs, with gravel and a couple of raised beds, either side, then down the steps and we've turfed the rest with a path across the front of the retaining wall and down the side to the bottom of the garden. We did it this way to keep costs down. I think the retaining wall cost us less than 1k in the end.
Think the house looks gorgeous. A sloping garden would definitely not put me off.

that seems like a very well.priced house. The garden isn't that steep. I'd definitely book a viewing

It's really not steeped at all. It just has a slope.

That’s not that steep at all, in the pics anyway
if it otherwise ticks the boxes, I’d offer

Embrace the steep. We have quite a steep long garden, you don't need a gym! The only thing I think is the rise close to the back of the house, I might want to cut that back to give a more open area outside the back door, the rest I would just have a meandering climbing path. But difficult to judge without walking it.

Looks great and the garden is fine. It's not flat but not awful either.

Was expecting much steeper! You should see the houses round here, practically cliff like compared to this!
Lovely house, go and snap it up. 😁

That's a beautiful house. I was expecting a completely awful outside area. It's lovely

If you have a look at the streetview then the front garden really doesn't seem very steep at all.

"(not very sure why it is being sold just after 2y)."

If you look at the HM Land Registry data it sold for £413,500 in July 2022.

That they're asking £450k in 2024 with a much weaker market and it's chain free suggests that it was, perhaps, bought by somebody who was intending to do it up and flip it for a profit.

I'm not too sure if Hertford would be in the East or the South East but, according to the ONS, average house prices in the South East fell by 3.9% between July 2022 and Dec 2023, in the East they fell by 2.7%.

The present owners are looking for 8.8% more than they paid in July 2022. This may be reflected in improvements they made to the property or it may not.

Just for comparison, the house sold for £262k in 2014. Also, number 17, three doors up, sold up for £389k in Sept 2022.

Source for price falls:

ONS: UK House Price Index: December 2023