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When you are preparing to sell your property, if it does not have a garden then you could discover that it’s harder to interest certain buyers. This guide explains the pros and cons that people may associate with owning a home without a garden, and it also provides information on simple steps to take so that you can still get a fair and fast offer from a buyer for your property.
- What does it mean to sell a property without a garden?
- Why a garden can make it easier to sell your house or flat
- Reasons why some buyers won’t want a home with a garden
- Making your house without a garden more attractive to buyers
- Four methods to sell your property without a garden
- Frequently asked questions about selling a home without a garden
What does it mean to sell a property without a garden?
A garden is often a popular feature at many leasehold or freehold properties, whether it’s many acres of green space in the countryside or a smaller yard at a house or flat in the city.
As this guide explains, there are several explanations for why someone looking to buy a home could place an emphasis on finding a property with a garden – including the fact that they like gardening, that they appreciate the extra private space and several other factors.
But having a garden is not essential in order to sell a property, and indeed people who like gardening will still buy city centre flats and other types of homes without any green space, opting to install window boxes or grow plants inside, as The Guardian notes.
There are also a number of possible drawbacks linked to owning a home that has a garden, such as the ability for invasive weeds like Himalayan balsam or Japanese knotweed to grow in the green space, which in turn can lead to problems like subsidence at a property.
That’s why you shouldn’t worry about not being to sell your house or flat just because it doesn’t have a garden, because you’ll always have options for attracting a buyer.
In the following sections you can read more about the advantages and disadvantages of trying to sell a home that does not have a garden, as well as get advice on actions that you can take which might help to increase your odds of a buyer making a speedy and fair offer.
Why a garden can make it easier to sell your house or flat
An estimated 87 percent of residential properties throughout the UK have some type of garden or other green space, according to the website DIY Garden. And gardens can be one of the main selling points that homeowners promote when trying to sell their properties.
That’s because there are a number of factors that could make a potential buyer look more favourably on a house with a garden compared to one that lacks this feature.
Some prospective buyers will see a property with a garden as their next dream home, and they might even consider having some kind of green space an essential requirement. And there are a few other reasons, detailed below, for why you may find it harder to attract interest from buyers in your property instead of a similarly sized home that has the additional attraction of a garden.
More space: If someone looking to purchase a property is interested in having as much private space as possible, whether that’s simply for relaxing, having somewhere for their children or pets to play, or any related reason, they could look far more favourably on a property for sale that has a large garden compared to yours that does not have any such green space.
Gardening potential: Many people throughout the UK enjoy gardening as a hobby and they could be searching for a property with a garden to buy because this would allow them to indulge in that hobby every day. There is not much that you can do to get this category of buyer interested in your home as the lack of a garden will likely make them lose interest.
Growing food: Depending on where a property with a garden is situated, the green space could be used for growing some types of fruits or vegetables. This might be appealing to some prospective buyers who could have an interest in saving some money by growing some food in their own garden, although this is unlikely to be a deciding issue with the sale of a home.
Reasons why some buyers won’t want a home with a garden
Whilst buyers could have a number of reasons for wanting a garden at their next property, and therefore look less favourably on your home, other people won’t want any green space.
As you’ll see below, there are a few factors that help to explain why certain prospective buyers will be looking for a flat or house that lacks any type of garden. Knowing what these issues can include is useful when trying to sell your property, because you can focus on them, hopefully persuading some people to have more interest in the home due to the lack of a garden.
High maintenance: Depending on the size of your garden, it could require a lot of work to keep it presentable and avoid it becoming overgrown. That may simply not be work that the buyer is prepared or willing to do, particularly if they have a physical disability or they are elderly.
Invasive weeds: Regardless of whether a potential buyer is an avid gardener or not, they might see the presence of green space at your property as being of too much concern for potential future risks from invasive weeds. These plants, like Japanese knotweed and Himalayan balsam, can spread quickly and create a host of problems for a property.
Pest infestations: Gardens, particularly those that become overgrown, can be very enticing for mice, rats and various types of insects and other pests. In some cases this can escalate to an infestation, which can not only be damaging to the perceived value of a property but can eventually cause potential health problems for the people living inside the home.
Making your house without a garden more attractive to buyers
A well-kept garden can sometimes help make a great first impression on a prospective buyer that comes to a property on a viewing to tour the interior and exterior – but does this mean that you will find it harder to sell your home because it does not have any green space?
Thankfully, the answer is no, because you still have a number of options for securing a fast and fair sale, such as selling to a zero-commission quick buyer like LDN Properties.
But it does mean that you might want to consider other steps that you could take to make your property appear more enticing to potential buyers even without a garden.
Outside the home, this can include some low-cost or no-cost actions such as fixing any broken windows, replacing missing roof tiles, giving window ledges a new coat of paint and more. Inside the property, you should remove as much clutter as possible from rooms and make sure they’re tidy and clean, because this could help to make the property appear more valuable.
And when you’re talking with potential buyers about the pros and cons of your property, you can remind them that the lack of a garden means they won’t have to worry about any restrictive covenants over the use of such land, removing one major hassle completely. Even though gardens are often seen as a plus when selling a house or flat, if they are covered by a restrictive covenant then this could make them appear less valuable, as the website Yopa notes.
Just remember that there are several options available for how to sell your home, and you will be able to find a buyer for the property regardless of the fact it lacks a garden – and the next section of this guide elaborates on those methods and how to get a fair and fast sale.
Four methods to sell your property without a garden
Perhaps the most crucial choice you’ll make when selling your home without a garden is selecting which approach to use to find a buyer. Typically the choices are selling with an estate agent, selling to a quick buyer, selling at an auction or selling without any help.
Some of the methods have prominent downsides, for example a sale sometimes taking more than an entire year when you try to find a buyer alone or sell through an estate agent. Other options have clear benefits, like avoiding having to pay any fees when you sell your property to a genuine no-commission quick home buying company such as LDN Properties.
The best way to find the ideal method for your situation is by first writing down your main aims with selling, including how long you’re willing to wait to find a buyer, whether you are open to paying any fees and the price at which you’d prefer to sell. Then compare these facts against the specific details of the four selections below to see which most closely meets your needs.
Selling with an estate agent
Selling with an estate agent is a traditional method of finding a buyer for a home without a garden, and you will not have to put in much effort for most of the process. That’s because the estate agent is responsible for the bulk of tasks necessary to sell your flat or house.
First they will prepare a listing that describes your home and includes photographs of the interior and exterior, and then they will advertise this in local newspapers, in the office and online. Next they’ll organise viewings where potential buyers can take a tour of your property. And finally they will field offers from people, ideally taking one through to the exchange of contracts.
Although estate agents will take care of all these steps, they expect to be paid for this work and will charge you commission if they succeed in finding a buyer for your property, as the website Interactive Investor explains. This fee is usually charged within a range between 1.15 percent to 1.40 percent of the final home sale price, but it may be higher or lower than that.
If saving money on the sale of your property is a top goal, you might want to review some of the other methods available, for example selling to a zero-fee quick buyer like LDN Properties.
Another downside of selling via an estate agent is that it can take more than a year in certain cases – and a buyer could make an offer but then withdraw it and make the sale fall apart, which would extend the selling timeline significantly because you’d have to restart the search for a buyer. They can do this without any penalty so long as contracts aren’t yet exchanged.
Certain estate agents may also not have any past record of selling a house without a garden, and this suggests that they could struggle with knowing how to get people interested in possibly making an offer on your property. Always ask estate agents about their history with selling homes like yours without a garden, and don’t use a company that lacks such experience.
Selling to a quick buyer
LDN Properties is an example of a quick buyer, which is a company that has funds available right away to purchase almost any category of home, including those without a garden.
They can usually complete the entire timeline of buying a house or flat within a few short weeks, and this includes the time required for exchanging contracts and paying the seller the proceeds. They’re able to move so speedily because they already have the funds in place to purchase properties, with no waiting for weeks or months to get a mortgage to cover the transaction.
Another great reason to sell your home to a quick buyer is that the honest companies will never make owners pay any commission when purchasing their properties. That helps with reducing your overall selling expenses, particularly when compared to using an auctioneer or an estate agent, because they will charge fees for selling that are deducted from the final proceeds.
Quick buyers are also renowned for making competitive and swift offers to purchase properties no matter their age, condition, location, shape, size or type – or whether they have a garden.
Since launching more than 15 years ago, LDN Properties has bought and made offers for not only houses without a garden but also smallholdings, off-plan homes, flats located near railway lines, properties situated close to mobile phone masts, houses that have a loft conversion, rental flats, homes that have squatters, park properties, penthouse flats, homes with a bad roof, guest houses and many other varied selling examples.
For extra peace of mind, you can ask quick buyers if they can prove they are registered with a third party organisation known as The Property Ombudsman (TPO). This entity writes rules, which all TPO members must follow, that guard owners against fraud in the quick buying sector. Don’t sell your home to a company that can’t prove it’s a TPO member as it may be a scam.
You can also verify the registration status of any quick buyer for free by visiting TPO’s website and then clicking on the "Find a Member" tab and typing in a company’s name. If they are truly registered with TPO, like LDN Properties, then you’ll next be shown their membership details. If they are not a legitimate TPO member then your search will not produce any results.
Selling at an auction
Auctioneers handle the bulk of the work in selling your home, including creating and marketing a listing to get people interested in your home, hosting the auction and overseeing a successful sale. If you want a minimal effort approach to selling your house, this may be a good choice.
But beware that auctioneers, like estate agents, will charge commission for the work that they do in selling your property without a garden. The usual fee is 2.5 percent of the final auction sale price for your home, and this raises your costs because it’s taken out of the sale proceeds. You may be able to negotiate a lower fee, so it’s worth asking individual companies about this.
This isn’t the swiftest method for selling a property, and you will have plenty of waiting time when selecting this approach. There’s a delay of many weeks or even months between when you opt for selling your home at an auction and when the auction happens. And then if the property does sell, the winning top bidder will have roughly a month to complete all of their mandatory steps, which includes signing the legal papers to finalise the sale.
Remember that a qualifying winning bid is a binding legal agreement that you’ll sell your home, and the buyer can sue you to enforce it if you try to cancel the sale after the auction. That’s why you must choose the lowest price at which you’re willing to sell – known as the reserve price – at a level that should produce a profit even after you pay the auctioneer their commission.
Selling without any help
Finally, you could consider selling without any third party help from an auctioneer or an estate agent. This puts the onus on you to handle all the tasks of finding a buyer, from the initial production and advertising of a listing through to scheduling viewings and hearing offers.
It’s a huge undertaking and not something you can only do in your spare time, and it can also prove very stressful. Unless you have experience with selling properties, or you have a similarly qualified friend or family member who is willing to help you with the sale for free, then you should consider other options, because this method can take a very long time.
Don’t be surprised if it’s more than a full year before you are able to sell your property. And even if you get a legitimate offer, the buyer could withdraw it and cause the sale to collapse, and they can do this without facing penalties so long as the contracts have not yet been exchanged. This would delay your selling schedule even further, as you’d have to start over with seeking a buyer.
The only obvious benefit of selling this way is not having to pay commission from the sale proceeds to an auctioneer or estate agent, which will lower your expenses. But you could discover that this saving is eliminated by the funds that you will need to spend on advertising your property and the various other actions required when selling a property on your own.
As an alternative, consider selling to a no-fee quick buyer such as LDN Properties, because this would help you to achieve the same goal of not paying any commission, but with the extra advantage of being able to sell much faster, usually within a few weeks.
Top queries and answers about selling a house without a garden
If you are thinking of selling your home quickly, you may have some questions to ask us, ranging from the types of property we can buy through to selling a house without parking. Here are some of the top questions we’re asked by people looking to sell a house without a garden:
Your top questions when selling house without a garden
An estimated 87 percent of houses, flats and other types of properties across the UK have some type of garden or other green space, and this can often make these homes appear more valuable to prospective buyers for a number of reasons. But there are also various explanations for why specific buyers might prefer to find a property that doesn’t have a garden.
There are a number of justifications for why a buyer could make having a garden a top goal when looking for their next property. For example, they might be an avid gardener and look forward to focusing on that hobby at their new home. Or they could simply like the idea of having additional private space, particularly if the garden is larger than usual.
Yes, certain buyers could simply see having a garden as too much work, because they’ll have to continuously tend to it in order to avoid it becoming overgrown. Other buyers might worry about the potential for invasive weeds like Japanese knotweed or Himalayan balsam to appear in the garden in the future, because they can cause property structural problems and other issues.
Because you won’t have any garden or green space that you can mow and weed to make look attractive to visiting potential buyers, you’ll need to focus on making other features of the home more attractive. This includes making sure that the rooms inside are clean and free of clutter, and outside the property fixing any visible problems such as replacing missing roof tiles.
The fastest way to sell a house without a garden or almost any type of property is doing with a quick buyer, such as LDN Properties, because they can complete all the steps for buying your home in just a handful of weeks. The other top three methods of selling at an auction, selling with an estate agent or selling without any assistance can all take many months at least.
Ask quick buyers if they can prove they are registered with The Property Ombudsman, which is an independent organisation that writes rules to guard homeowners against fraud in the quick buying industry. All TPO members must follow these regulations, which should give you extra peace of mind when selling. Don’t sell to a non-TPO member because it could be a scam.
If you choose to sell your property using the services of an auctioneer or an estate agent then you will need to pay them commission if they succeed in finding a buyer for your property, and this fee will be taken immediately out of the sale proceeds. But if you choose to sell without any third party help or you sell to a no-commission quick buyer then you won’t pay any fees.
