Be honest about how you will use the yard

A yard sells a house on a sunny Saturday in June. Then you own it, it is August of the second year, and you are cutting grass you never walk on. Outdoor space is the one feature buyers judge with their imagination instead of their calendar. Before you pay for it, say out loud what you are going to do out there.

Name the use before you price the space

There is a difference between wanting a yard and having a use for one. Write the use down as a sentence. "The kids need somewhere to be outside without me driving them." "The dog needs to go out at six in the morning without a leash." "I want to grow vegetables." "We eat outside from May to September." "I want to sit somewhere nobody can see me."

Each of those sentences points at a different property. Kids need flat, open and visible from a kitchen window. A dog needs fencing, a gate that latches and a surface that survives rain. Vegetables need sun, water and somewhere to put a hose. Entertaining needs a hard surface big enough for a table and chairs, close enough to the kitchen that you are not carrying food across wet grass. Privacy needs height and distance from other people's windows, and it is the hardest of the five to add later.

If you cannot finish the sentence, you do not need the yard. You want the picture of one.

Sun decides what a yard is good for

Walk the yard and work out where the sun lands and at what hour. A south-facing back yard is warm in the afternoon, good for growing things, and hard to sit in during a heat wave without shade. A north-facing yard behind a two-storey house can sit in shadow most of the day, which is comfortable in August and useless for a garden. East gets the morning. West gets the evening, which is when most people are actually home.

Then look up. A neighbour's mature cedar, a fence line, the roof next door: those set the real light, not the compass. In the Fraser Valley you also plan for rain. An uncovered patio is a patio you use for part of the year. A covered one you use for most of it. When I walk a yard with buyers, I ask what time of day they picture themselves out there, then we check whether the sun is there at that hour.

The maintenance is the price you pay every week

Grass gets cut. Beds get weeded. Cedar hedges get trimmed and the clippings get taken somewhere. Gutters on a house surrounded by trees fill twice a year. A pool is a season of chemistry and a winter of covering. None of that is expensive on any single Saturday. It is expensive as a standing appointment with your weekend.

Be honest about who does it. If the answer is "we will hire someone", treat that as an ongoing cost you carry for as long as you own the home, and ask yourself whether you would still pay it in a year when money is tight. If the answer is "I will", think about the last outdoor chore you actually did.

A big yard is not simply a bigger version of a small one. Past a certain size it stops being a place you use and becomes a place you maintain so it does not look neglected.

What a townhome or condo gives you instead

Outdoor space in a strata is smaller, and it is also somebody else's job. A townhome patio or a fenced side yard covers most of what a family really does outside: a table, a barbecue, a place for the dog, room for a kid to be outside the door. The lawns and hedges around it are maintained through your strata fees, which means the work is paid for rather than done by you.

The trade is control. Check the bylaws before you assume anything: strata rules can govern what goes on a patio, whether you can plant, whether a barbecue is allowed, whether a fence or an awning needs approval, and what pets are permitted. A limited common property patio is yours to use under the rules, not yours to alter. Read the bylaws and the rules in the Form B package rather than asking the seller what they think is allowed.

How I handle this

I ask buyers to describe one specific Saturday in the yard, in detail, from the morning to the evening. The answer sorts people quickly. Some describe three separate activities and mean every word, and those clients should buy the detached house with the real back yard. Others get through one sentence and stop, and for them the yard is a preference they inherited rather than a plan.

I own rentals and I look after the properties I own, so I will admit my bias: I would rather have a smaller outdoor space I use every day than a large one I look at through a window. A yard you use is worth paying for. A yard you do not use is a chore you bought, and you keep paying for it every weekend until you sell.

Thinking about buying or selling in the Fraser Valley? Message me and we will go through your options.