Would you buy your *almost* dream home... if it had no garden?

[Southernbelle19]

We have found a house that we are absolutely in love with. It's the perfect location, size and is beautiful - it has been very well cared for and is very to our taste already and has obviously had a lot of money spent on it. This is brilliant as we are expecting a baby and don't want a house that needs lots of work.

The only downside is it doesn't have a garden, only a small (albeit very nice) back yard. Enough space for a table and chairs and maybe a small bbq but that's it.

I already have one child and we are expecting another so ideally we would want a garden. However, we have viewed numerous properties and all of them within our budget are either way too small, the wrong location or need completely renovating. But this house we fell in love with and ticks every other box.

I should say we are very outdoorsy people and live in the countryside so we will be spending a lot of time outdoors regardless, but obviously not having a garden to run around in is still a compromise.

What would you do?

When we lived in a house with a back yard, we took the kids somewhere every weekend day. So they had varied, rich experiences.

When we moved to our dream home with great front and back gardens, we mainly stayed at home. I am at peace here. We use the garden/s a lot. And we live in Scotland so shite weather.

Kids are now young adults and teens.

(Our yard was much bigger than the one you are describing.)

Totally yes. Gardens are overrated! Add up how much time you spend in your garden vs your house and its hardly any.

Given what you've said then @Southernbelle19 write your list of top priorities and your other half do the same. Say top six criteria. See where garden space comes and if it's not in the top four, then it's worth a shot.

We bought our dream house with a yard similar to the one you describe and have absolutely zero regrets! We live within walking distance from woodland, parks, allotments and other spaces. When the weather’s good we head out anyway, we have BBQ’s at friends, we get the kids out on scooters to the nearest park. I can count on one hand the amount of times each year we would have maybe used the garden if we’d had one. We can still have BBQs in our yard and have some seating space/space for a sandpit and playhouse but we certainly don’t miss a big lawn etc. We also don’t have to spend hours maintaining anything.

We have lots of friends with smaller houses and huge gardens which they sporadically use in the summer- I’m very happy having a larger house to rattle around in all winter (which seems to be 80% of the year now) instead of feeling cooped up most of the year!

It depends if you view this as your forever home or not. If not, but you're confident you'll be able to buy and sell it at prices you'll be happy with, then I think it'll be worth it. You can always move later.

I want a garden as well, but with multiple people living in the house in the U.K (presumably), I think it's better to get more indoor space. Maybe it wouldn't matter so much if you were single, but it will matter more if you live somewhere where it rains frequently or it's dull weather for a good portion of the year.

From age 7-18 I lived in a terraced house with a back yard (having moved from a house with a massive garden, 1/3 of an acre).

It was really no problem. We played by the river, up the woods, in the two nearby parks, tennis against the shop side wall next door when it was shut on a Sunday 😄, hopscotch on the side street pavement, made the dog jump broomhandles on bricks for biscuits…🙈

Honestly, kids will make their own fun.

Nope

We live in an old Victorian terrace in the middle of a city. Tiny garden but literally two beautiful parks 5 mins walk away. Children are at an age where they want to be on bikes and scooters and having a garden to accommodate that would be impossible unless we lived in the countryside. It’s worked for us - not always ideal - but having a house that ticked all the boxes in our dream area with good schools was all so much more important than a garden which is only really usable a few months each year. I’d go for it personally!

We have an ok sized garden. This year it has been so muddy and unusable as as soon as the kids go on it, it churns up so to maintain any grass we haven’t been on the lawn at all. Although it is an ok size, it is no where near big enough for endless running or playing football. So I’m not sure it would swing it for us!

You say that in your area you cant afford the house with the big garden so it sounds like if you want to stay in your area and this house otherwise is perfect then its the best you are going to get. Whats the problem with your current home that this new home solves?

Incidentally, i lived in an amazing house with a rubbish garden and it ate away at me and we ended up moving. It also had a lot of walks and parks closeby. In a way, we made greater sacrifices for our next house but it was in the area we wanted to be in so in my experience, location would trump everything else.

Sounds like you're going to have to compromise on something unless you can increase your budget. It's either the garden, location or size - which one is least important to you?
For me, a garden and size of the property would come above location, only you know which compromise will work for you and your family.

So controversially... i dont think a big garden is all that

I say this as someone who was PISSED OFF the garden in the house we bought was "only" 100ft.

I can now see 100ft of garden is about 80ft more gardening than i wish i had to do every year to be honest 🤣

We have 2 small kids and have been out in the garden approx 5 times this summer.

If you love it and plan to stay in this house 10 years plus I'd def go for it

Nope, I wouldn’t buy it. We love our garden, bbqs, swingball, football etc. we used to have a yard in our old house- it didn’t get the sun in the evenings and that was a reason to move.

Having owned a house with a back yard and a house with a garden I would agree with the PP that a garden transforms how you live. All the rooms at the back of the house open out to it and even in winter it's magical because the house is so connected to the garden. The summer we moved here (bearing in mind we previously had a bigger backyard than you are thinking about with several espalier fruit trees and lots of herbs, fruit bushes and space for veg and a washing line) the kids spent the entire summer in the garden. They have a trampoline, a badminton net, there's room to play football and summer sleepovers are in a big tent in the garden and they gossip the night away on the big sofa at the end of the garden so don't disturb us. I love gardening, DH is less keen but loves having a social garden.

Having said all that we didn't have to compromise on the house but we did only look at houses with acceptably sized gardens because it was a non-negotiable for us.

I never would. We have a small garden now and it makes me sad that it's not big enough for the things we want to get our son. I wouldn't even have looked at a house without a garden at all.

A park wouldn't make up for it for us, even a really good one. It's just so convenient having a garden there. On rainy days, we often use the garden for 15 minutes between showers, which isn't doable with a park you have to walk to. My son loves his paddling pool and water table so much, you can't do that at the park. And while he's tiny, the privacy and safety of having a fenced in garden where he has space to play but I don't have to watch him like a hawk is wonderful.

No garden would be a deal breaker for me and is the main reason I don't want to leave the house I live in. Inwould walk away from the house sithout a second thought but not my garden.

My house in the UK has a small side yard but we live opposite the village green and a lot of country walks. To be honest, my son was in most of the sports teams so spent very little time away from the court/pitch and if he fancied a kickabout he just went across the road. And I had the bonus of zero maintenance.

After living through that lockdown, I would never choose not to have a garden if I could help it. It’s not inconceivable that it could happen again.

I can't think of a single parent nowadays that would say to their kids, "Sure! You can go play by the river with your mates, completely unaccompanied!" 😂

No, I wouldn't. In fact, a friend of mine is currently buying a house mostly on the strength of the garden, and my brother bought his house primarily because of the land that came with it. But that is because we are all garden-y types. So everyone is different.

I would try to think really carefully about how a garden would actually fit into your life in terms of nitty gritty daily details that will bug you. For example, will you feel stressed if you can't dry laundry on a line without it being right in your face? Will you viscerally miss having somewhere to plant herbs/pop in some spring bulbs/let your child walk about barefoot on the grass? Or, on the other side - is a garden actually something you like the idea of, but realistically, with small children, it might become a chore? Does your heart sink at the idea of mowing the lawn?

My hunch is you'd cope fine without a garden, because you see it as somewhere convenient for children to have a run in - but you're already outdoorsy and you will likely end up going to the park or going for walks and so on anyway.

Definitely not, I love making dinner or littering in the kitchen and watching the kids playing out on the garden. I know the weather hasn’t been great recently but it’s so much easier to look after kids when they’re outside.

This coupled with easy access to public parks (not maintained by you!) and walking distance to good schools, why the hell are you even thinking about it?! I would have banged in an offer within seconds of viewing!

Buy the damned house!

We have 2 small kids and have been out in the garden approx 5 times this summer.

In comparison I'm in my garden pretty much every day. So e.g. Monday was dry and warm so I hung out the washing in the morning, DD1 and I had lunch in the garden, I did some weeding after work then DH, DD1&2 and I sat outside in the late evening watching the bats and putting the world to rights.

No. There’s always another house.

I have a 3 m long x 3 m wide garden. The garden of the last house we lived in was 24 m x 3 m. The slight difference with us is that we went from rental to buying and this was all we could afford but I bloody love my little garden (area is much nicer than our rental and i have practicallyeverything I need within a 10 min walk which also helps). Garden is NE facing too which will leave mumnetters clutching at their pearls 😀

My dcs are primary school age, we live in a cul de sac full of similar aged children so they play out the front. We live close to a park and spend lots of the weekends on walks. National trust and RHS membership gets a good seeing too.

There are two great things with our garden.

1. We spent 3 hours a few weekends ago cutting all hedges back, jetwashing and cutting the grass out the front. Apart from another cut, watering and weeding that's the bulk of our gardening done for the year.

2 being NE facing we can sit out even on the hottest days (which the UK weather gods have forgotten about).

Downside, we can only have a couple of friends round at a time so.no good if you want to entertain.

And we lack drainage for a pool but the sprinkler is just as much fun.

Basically I wouldn't rule it out but remember it could put off other buyers if you ever want to sell.