Yes, you can do both of those things on a 1/2 acre lot. A lot will depend of course, on the size and footprint of your house plan, as well as setbacks. We are in a small neighborhood of custom homes on lots @ 1/2 acre (some are slightly larger, some slightly smaller and a couple of owners bought 2 lots so they have 1 AC.) The average home size is @ 4500 sq ft with 3500 being the minimum and several approaching 6000+. There are no front loaded garages, but several have the two car garage side facing with a one car garage perpendicular making a sort of parking courtyard off to the side of the house. The other are just normal 3-car side load garages.

Many of the homes in our neighborhood have pools and elaborate covered porches and there is plenty of room. We have one of the smaller lots, not quite 1/2 AC, and even with a 3- car rear loaded garage have quite a large backyard, no pool but plenty of room for one.

The one thing you will really need to think about in regards to downsizing your lot is the importance and cost of landscaping. Our neighborhood is rather wooded, but even with existing trees, we are spending quite a bit of money each year augmenting the landscape plan that was initially installed. Having a great porch and backyard is so much more enjoyable when you have the feeling of privacy that good landscaping can provide. Not something you needed on 44 AC, mother nature is your landscaper! :)

I think it all depends on the dimensions of the 1/2 acre lot. We just sold a house on exactly 1/2 acre. The lot was narrow and deep. There was plenty of backyard space to do anything you'd want. It was too narrow and deep in my opinion. When we bought, the house was already built but no others were nearby. Once we bought the house, had it surveyed and fenced, we realized how narrow it was. A couple of other owners purchased 2nd lots also.

I agree with nini804 about landscaping and privacy. It'll take careful planning to make sure it's what you want. There were many mature trees in the backyard but none along the sides or front. It just takes time to get things planted and grown enough.

For a retirement home, I wouldn't even want to deal with 1/2 acre of yard work. And I like gardening! That's suburban young parents with kids neighborhood type living. I'd want a small little city lot with a detached garage at the rear, (preferably on an alley) and maybe a covered walkway between my little 3/2 or 2/2 house. I don't need "space". I won't be there a lot. I'll be out traveling or doing volunteer work, or dozens of things. Heck, I'd do a loft with a rooftop garden if it had good parking and an elevator! There's a lot to be said for a space around 1000 square feet! And the biggest bonus I can think of is that it's easy to clean!

Yes, very doable. Just check lot dimensions and setbacks carefully.

We are on an acre and it is a lot of yard work. 1/2 acre should be perfect.

I'm curious when you say you have lived in the country how many acres you mean? (You said 1 acre currently). We are on 6 1/2 acres too far from everywhere including kids activities. I devote more than 1/2 day each week to mowing. This is with a commercial zero turn mower. We have 3 little kids and just got about 65 acres to build on. We spent nearly a full day yesterday mowing weeds, running two tractors! What are your uses for the land? Every parcel is different, and some are less work than others. We are planning on some prairie grads to minimize mowing....but planting prairie grass will be a two year intense project. I am also planning a large orchard and cattle. Talk about a lot of work!!! We are not vacationers. I am not a mall goer. Our land will be a lot of work. A huge upfront commitment and a large yearly commitment. We can't imagine going back to having neighbors again though . We will only be one minute from town.
It all depends what stage of life you are in and what you plan to spend your free time doing? I would say that if you are already considering 1/2 acre that you should do that....except I think you have to consider both. What we did was determine the minimum amount of acres to do what we wanted (20). Then what we would do with x amount more. Nobody here can tell you what you should go with. Good luck!

We will be building our retirement house within the next two years. We are still "young" but husband will retire next year from his job (He is 51) and he will continue to work somewhere else.

We considered acreage/rural setting and city setting and we decided to stay within the city so we bought a corner lot in a wooded subdivision near the perimeter or our city because we wanted a side load garage. The house will face south and the size we want is about 2,400 SF. Our lot is about .60 acre.

I am scared of "wild" animals and I prefer city utilities.

MrsPete,
I think it's absolutely doable -- around here there are many homes that size with similar amenities on properties of a quarter-acre (or even less).

MrsPete-
We were on just over half acre in a subdivision and just trading that for 2 acres of woods. I realize that it's not 44 BUT, my point is - we are hoping to have LESS yard to mow with the wooded lot. We planted a lot of trees in the subdivision to try to get shade and privacy and it was a lot of work for dh to prune and keep up with.

We anticipate having much less yard to mow and more natural privacy with the lot we are currently building on. Because it is natural woods you don't really need to prune and manicure as much.

The house will sit about 120' off the road. The only thing I am thinking about as being high maintenance right now is wheeling the dumpster that far and blowing all that snow! Otherwise, I am quite excited about it and we aren't there yet but plan on this being our last home as well.

naf_naf - I hate snakes. Other 'wild' animals fine but just no snakes....one has already been spotted (but I am sure it was the only one)!

So I guess I'd encourage you to really think about the privacy that you are used to and that you'd want and how you would achieve that on that type of a lot.

Okay, good information. I am glad to hear that we could easily build a medium-sized house on a lot this size . . . without being crowded. Obviously, I understand that every 1/2 acre doesn't have the same dimensions, but I was having trouble visualizing how big a typical 1/2 acre might be.

Yes, I understand the concept of "smaller lot, bigger landscape". When you have only a small amount of space, it "needs to be" landscaped, whereas acres and acres are just kept natural. After all, you can't see all of 44 acres at once, whereas 1/2 acre can be scanned from the porch.

Yes, LiveOak, one of our concerns is that we also plan lots of traveling, volunteering, and other projects. We do not want to be tied down to maintenance, nor do we want to pay other people to keep up large areas.

Nostalgic Farm, I grew up on 60+ acres and another 200-odd a bit down the road. Thing is, there's always something that needs doing, and sometimes that's welcome . . . but not always. Also, at not-quite 50, I'm perfectly capable of doing a good day's work like I could in my younger days, but it does take more out of me. Looking at my older relatives, I can foresee the day when I can't do it all myself.

An orchard is the one project I'd want to keep, if we do downsize. But I don't really want to embark upon a large orchard. One dwarf apple tree gives enough apples for all the canned apple goods my family can eat in a year (and that's with heavy consumption), and we have no interest in selling fruit. I think I could still have enough fruit trees to keep my canner busy.

No, I'm not scared of wild animals. I shoot well.

Autumn, I understand about keeping part of the land wild and part of it mowed, but the wild part isn't completely maintenance-free.

Thanks for your advice, all! I am not sure which direction we'll go, but you've answered my biggest question: It is a choice. This can be done on 1/2 acre. That's the smallest we'd buy, so now we're free to look around and see whether -- when we're looking at real land, not just thinking hypothetically -- it actually feels right or not.

In theory you can have less yard work with 44 acres if it is wooded. You can clear out as much yard space as you want and let nature take care of the rest. We have 12 acres with about 8 being grass and I only plan on keeping 3-4 acres mowed and mow the other on a monthly basis. You can always hire a yard care service if you don't want the hassle.

I myself would never give that up to go to surburbia (this is personal preference and I enjoy being outside and getting exercise). GL

I think you could easily get a nice home and yard on 1/2 acre. Our lake cabin (which will be torn down someday and replaced with our retirement home) sits on 1/2 acre.

We had it surveyed when the house next door was recently sold. You can see that the lot is less than 1/2 acre. We can get a nice home on the lot with a good architect. We will probably have to have an L shaped house which I do not love.

Advantage, yes there is less yard work. Disadvantage...and to me this is huge. We can't sit on our deck and enjoy any kind of privacy from our neighbors. After living in the house we are in now on several acres, I enjoy my privacy.

Look at the mls listings for lots and look at actual lot width and depths. Try to find out setbacks and that may give you an idea of what you can do with 1/2 acre.

Here is our 1/2 acre lot. You can see that it is about 100 ft wide. About twice as deep. You might want a lot that is wider and not quite as deep. Think about what kind of house you want to build. Then ask yourself if you want to be that close to your neighbors.

Is there anything in between? My mom used to have 1/2 acre...and you don't have a lot of privacy. It's bigger than a regular lot, but barking dogs, lawn mowers, loud revving (?) engines...they are all very close.

As you probably know, a larger lot (1/2 acre) encourages neighbors to accumulate lots of sheds, shops, cars, 'projects', etc. If you won't have that problem, 1/2 acre may work well. But 1+ (even 2) would give you more privacy.

We have almost 80, but much of it is farmed by neighbor, so I only have to keep track of about 20. It was a LOT of work, when my husband was in the hospital. 44 acres might be too big, if your DH doesn't like yard work. Are you planning to have animals, a large garden...or just looking for privacy and views?

Interesting discussion! We are currently building on 7 acres in SC, and I'm not concerned about yard work. Our tiny 1/6 of an acre in FL requires a good deal of work to be perfect, like the other houses in the neighborhood. OTOH, we only have a small amount of non-wooded land at the new place, and I mow it a couple times a year. The leaves can stay where they fall. Snow isn't much of an issue, but I'll have a tractor for mowing and plowing. I don't plan to do much that I can't do from the seat of the tractor.

If you want to keep a woodlot 'nice', it can be a lot of work. In the 6 years we've had our place, I haven't done any work in the woods, but there is brush coming up, and a number of dead trees and limbs. It would be a lot of hard, physical, and potentially dangerous work to really maintain it. I plan to nibble at it during cool weather, but I'll soon be at an age where I won't be able to keep up with it. Then, I guess we'll just let Mother Nature do her thing.

As for 1/2 acre- that should be plenty of room. It's roughly 100 X 200 feet, or a little under 150' a side for a square lot.

maintaining a long driveway can be very expensive and
time consuming

but I don't want to look at the backs of houses...........
I've had enough of that

We have created a long walking and ATV trail through our ten heavily treed acres and built a bridge over our creek. DH mows the trail, and we also have to take care of the trees around the trail. It also depends on what kind of trees you have. We have a lot of Hedgeapple trees. If you don't know what they are then you are lucky.

So if you (or anyone else) plan on ever going into the trees then they will need maintenance, and it's a lot of work (trimming, cutting down, splitting, hauling off, and/or stacking). If you will only use them for a backdrop then it isn't nearly as important. Just a thought.