When good weather comes back, the wish for a garden grows. According to the area you wish to live in, buying a house or an apartment with a garden can be a more or less reachable dream. Fulfilling your dream to have a garden often implies to go away from city centres, which also means more constraints, which should not be under-estimated when you buy.
A house with a garden, a city dweller’s dream
Some urban dwellers who want to escape from the noise, pollution and lack of security of the big cities decide to move to the suburbs. The idea to live in a house with a garden in a nice environment is attractive, but it requires a big investment if you want to remain in the inner suburbs. If you accept to make a few more kilometres and to buy in an area where the housing market is a bit less tense, it becomes easier to find this kind of property but you also have to accept a few more constraints.
“Some urban dwellers who want to escape from the noise, pollution and lack of security of the big cities decide to move to the suburbs.”
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Costly kilometres
Buyers moving to the countryside shall often expect time-consuming and costly commuting to go to work. Some would say that it is the price for tranquillity, and that for nothing in the world they would come back to their previous urban lives. For others, on the contrary, the experience can be a real failure and the bucolic garden dream can turn into a hard to stand daily constraint. If it is easy to live without a car in a big city, it becomes a necessity in the countryside, or you have to be ready to use public transportation! Therefore, never forget to take into consideration the time and cost of commuting…
“For some, the bucolic garden dream can turn into a hard to stand daily constraint.”
Apartment with garden
A ground floor apartment with a private garden can be an alternative for a house. The buyer can organise his garden at his convenience and use it as he wishes providing condominium rules are respected. A garden adds value to an apartment, but ground floor locations are also more exposed to burglary. This criterion, more or less important according to the area, has to be considered during the negotiation. The buyer must also check that the seller is the owner of the garden, as it might have been annexed to the apartment without the co-owner being entitled to do so. The property deed is the only proof that the seller is the actual owner of this tiny green area.
“A ground floor apartment with a private garden can be an alternative for a house.”
City gardens, an unaffordable luxury
In big cities or historical centres, the tiniest acre of green is a luxury asset. In some big agglomerations, apartments with a garden or a terrace belong to a niche market dominated by agencies specialised in premium accommodations. Some wealthy motivated garden lovers are on waiting lists hoping to find their dream property. These premium apartments are for the happy few, and the average citizen will have to turn to other kinds of products to satisfy his desire for a garden!
