Buying A Home
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Is a small yard a deal breaker for you? ETA pics added
We found a house we like in the neighborhood we LOVE. The only downside is that the yard is tiny. We live in the Midwest so DH are thinking we can go to parks when it's nice out since we only have about 4 months of nice weather here anyway.
I just feel a little guilty for the kids not having a huge yard to play in. DH and I are not big outdoor people.
So, I guess I'm asking if a small yard is the right compromise to make. If it were another house, there would probably be interior compromises and this one is perfect inside.
ETA: Pics of back yard. We can always rip out the pavers and plant sod if we decide to later.
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Re: Is a small yard a deal breaker for you? ETA pics added
For us, it was a dealbreaker. We didn't want/need acerage, but we did want a large enough yard for our kid(s) to have a playset and place to run. We also have a dog, so we wanted an area where they could all get some energy out!
It is really one of those personal preferences. Only you know if it is a compromise you are comfortable with. The thing to think about is this. You can change MANY things about the inside of a home...but you cannot change the size of your yard.
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To me it depends on how "usable" the yard is. Does it back to rocks? Is it super sloped or is it just really small? Could you conceivably at least fit a sandbox or tiny swingset back there? That's the type of stuff I would think about. And how close are the parks to that particular house?
It was for us. We had two things we wanted in our next house, a big rec room for the kids and a big yard for the kids and dog. Our last house had a .17 acre yard and it was too small for us and we were too close to the neighbors! We hated it and we were friendly with all our neighbors. The house we are in contract on right now is a little more than an acre and exactly want we wanted. We were not going to go less than 1/2 an acre.
We have a huge swingset and it is amazing how much space a nice deck plus the swingset will take up.
The closest park is .9 miles away and it's a great one, huge.
The yard is 100% usable and it's flat. Just small.
If it helps, the lot is 4100 sq ft and the house is 900 sq ft on the main (full 2 story). There a single car garage off to the side. It already has a 6 ft privacy fence around it.
I am wondering if it's the reason the property taxes are so low - major bonus.
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Originally, yes. One of our requirements was a large backyard.
The house we bought has almost everything on our want/need list and more except for a backyard. (It has none.)
In the end, we decided all the positives of the house outweighed the fact that there is no backyard. We have a decent size front yard and the house backs up to a large park and nature preserve.
Now that we've been there for almost two years, it works great. We don't have time to do a lot of yard maintenance and still get the perk of the open park space whenever we want to have outdoor gatherings or play football. There are three playgrounds within a couple minutes' walk for when we have kids; hopefully it will compensate.
It is hard to see the true back yard in those pictures (since the tree is in the one and not the other to really gauge).
Our back yard is not huge and most of it is in a protected area so we need to leave it in its natural state. It doesn't bother us but we could also get a swingset in there if we had children in this house. It really depends on how functional the area is.
It's a dog's life!
That is small. Is there any grass or someplace for the kids to play?
There's a front yard. Or we will rip out the pavers and sod it.
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As said, personal preference plays a role. We lived in the city for the first 2 years of DS's life. We literally had a concrete pad out back that was tiny. We had a deck off the back, and a rooftop deck, but really - for a child, it was useless.
We luckily had a park very close by that was wonderful to visit.
Now, we have a good sized yard and I LOVE it. Absolutely love it. It's nice to be able to just go out back for a few minutes before dinner instaed of trying to truck to the park.
The yard you pictured - it's small, but honestly, I could live with it. If you really want a yard w/ grass, I'd rip up the patio from where the one part of the house ends and put grass down around the tree and throughout the rest. I think that would be a decent amount of green area for a child to play.
And to add - as much as I love our yard... upkeep is a PITA! Smaller yard means less upkeep, and if you aren't big outdoor people to begin w/, trust me, the less upkeep the better.
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Well, with a park so close and the fact that it's at least flat, I'd consider it. Especially if the rest of the house is exactly what you are looking for. It's so hard to find everything you want in a house and when you find one you love, that says "home" to you, you can really prioritize what you're willing to compromise on.
You are right, the one downfall is trucking to the park. I think it could be worse than this.
Compromises are the worst!
I am also looking forward to having DH around and not doing yard work. It's funny, our first house was a corner lot, now we have a normal lot, and now thinking about going even smaller.
A single guy has lived there since 2002 - he just got married and selling. So I'm sure that's why it's not really kid friendly w/ the pavers right now. Hate to rip up that nice paver work though too!
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I think I would focus more on whether the size of the yard would hinder re-sale or hurt the value of the property (compared to size of other houses in the neighborhood).
For DH, small yard is a deal breaker. For me, less maintainance/weeding is better, so I wouldn't mind - but its important to DH so we are having a good size backyard so we can have a fence and a playset
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I only would have considered a small yard if a park was within walking distance.
I don't know. To me, having property is more important than interior issues. Interior things can be dealt with. You can't get more property later... at least not easily.
Are you looking for this to be your forever home? You might not be big outdoorsy people now, but things change. I would keep looking, but if you find that this is the one for you, it's your compromise to make.
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I don't have dogs or kids right now but hopefully in the future. However, I'm in Arlington, VA... really close to DC. I look at that yard and think that looks nice, I hope we can find something like that! Sizes/quality of things is all relative.
If you are not outdoor people then you probably would not want to have to deal with a huge yard. Sure the kids factor in but kids are kind of going to follow their parents lead until of course they are teens and think they know everything so I don't think I'd worry too much about the kids.
The only other consideration then would be resale value however I'm sure there others out there like you who are not as big on the outdoors or perhaps a transplant to the area who is just glad to get out of a concrete jungle...
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I always laugh at these posts. Where I am that's a normal sized yard so I wouldn't hesitate. In fact with a 900 sq ft house it's probably on the large size.
If it's unusually small for the area you live in I might hesitate, if it's fairly standard and the house fits your needs I wouldn't.
For us, yes, no yard is a deal breaker. We've been looking for over a year now and have passed on 3 houses that we otherwise would have made offers on because of no yard.
If I were you, I'd definetly get rid of those pavers and put grass down.
I think our yard is only very slightly larger (we have .12 acre). It (clearly) wasn't a deal-breaker for us because (1) The house is small too so it kind of 'goes' and (2) this isn't our forever house.
We do have a child and I would, if I were you, take out the pavers (at least some) and sod to make an area of kids to play.
That yard would have been a deal breaker for us. For some reason yard size ended up being one of those things that we felt more strongly about after we started looking at homes. I didn't realize how important it was to us.
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