[Closed] New build estates and "Social Housing"

I wouldn't bother.I tarmac new estates like these and after two months of
moving in theres toys/trampolines/etc strewn on gardens everywhere.
Bet i've done hundreds last year and it's rare to find a good one.
Nearly free houses = Dregs (imho)

Bought my first house in similar type of setting and it was a nightmare to the extent that mrs wouldn't stay in the house on her own, the social housing was trashed.

Ok, that's 2-0 so far... Any positive experiences? 🙂

All depends on your financial situation, your own situation and tolerance to others.

Personally I know of too many friends that have had / are having a nightmare.

It ( the model) doesn't work!

I wouldn't contemplate it for a second.

Sorry

It can depend upon the lottery of who the social landlord is and the tenants you get. However, shared ownership properties should be no different to owner occupied.

One point to note is that most social housing is now set at a market rent and this can mean that you often get working families who just want a more responsible landlord.

A mate at work lives on an estate just like you describe, except the developer explicitly said that next door wouldn't be social housing... Anyway the first neighbours were hell and for 8 months they were suffering and tried to sell etc. Its like night and day now with decent neighbours and life appears to be normal.

You can get terrible neighbours who are owner occupiers, private rented or social housing.

I'm baffled as to why you would be wanting to buy a new build. I've not seen anything built in the last 10 years that was anything other than pokey, badly laid out, poorly constructed and on marginal land in the unknown end of town.
As above, the social housing depends on the landlord. I've seen good and bad on that front, and I've also had shockingly bad neighbours who earned far more than I did in 'nice' areas. This is my 8th residence in 10 years, so it isn't like I've not been moving.

TooTall +1.

not to mention lack of storage in new builds

where can you fit your bikes!!

When the wife and I were looking to buy our first house, we looked at new builds but the fact they all have a percentage of "affordable housing" put us off. Since working for a local authority for a while after that and getting to see plenty of them, we don't regret that decision one bit.

Depends on the family profile in the social housing. If it includes any material number of families with teenagers (which we have in the one near us), you can expect vandalism, petty theft and used condoms left in playgrounds

This thread is a serious eye opener and worthy of both "Jesus wept" and "Wow, just wow".

Shakes head and walks off.

Hmmmm. Its not looking good...
If it makes any difference, the area is in a very nice little town which is well regarded, the house is in no way pokey and has plenty of storage (the garage is MASSIVE). The vast majority of the housing is shared ownership, with a splattering of social.

Does that change anything? 🙂

I live in one of those social housing properties that you are so worried about..

We are a low income family of four working all the hours god sends getting a new business off the ground..
Our neighbours are a guy that works in Tesco and his young family and a working single mum that lives with her 10 year old son..
Our mates 3 doors down are another young family of four, both parents working, the father is a full time forestry worker, mum works part time at a stables..

I think this mix of housing allocation works very well, certainly on this estate, and others that I know of..
I think that everyone wants to get on with their neighbours, regardless of their personal income, and bad neighbours are roundly disliked regardless of the range of social circumstances within the community..
This mixture of allocation has the added bonus that there will always be a few handy blokes that aren't allergic to community spirit living in your street, that you can turn to when you need help to deal with neighbourhood problems.. 😉
Think of us as your guardian angels, like the Hells Angels providing security at Altamont 😆

I think a couple of the home owners at the top of our road were a bit nervous when the 'chavs' started moving in (the home owners houses were finished a year before the social housing properties), the guy who's car I helped dig out of the snow looked like he was literally going to wee with fright..
I can understand and forgive the apprehension though, we all fear that which we don't understand..

😆

glupton1976 - Member
This thread is a serious eye opener and worthy of both "Jesus wept" and "Wow, just wow".
Shakes head and walks off.

Everyone's opinion is welcome here - come on, spit it out 🙂

Yunki - if you don't *see* the problem, maybe you ARE the problem!

I of course jest. I was brought up on a council estate and most people were lovely. I've also had neighbours from hell (drugs, prostitutes, all night music etc). I'm potentially spending large (to me) sums of money and don't want to be unhappy.

It would be the fact it's a new build that puts me off, not the nearby housing.

I work in gardens and see the outsides of new build houses falling apart after a year, no idea what the insides are like but if fences, patios and gutters aren't being built properly, I can't imagine the insides are much better.

I'm sure there are problems elsewhere.. we're lucky to live in a great area

When you buy a house, unless you are buying one where you own the land as far as you can see you're pretty much unable to 'control' your neighbours.

And tbh the last 'estate/development' we lived on probably had more rented houses than owned, as in lots of BTL.

It's all luck of the draw.
I bought my new build house 7 years go (tiny 'estate') of 5 houses and there is a block of eight 3 story houses in front of us (with some decent sized trees/hedges separating us). 6 are privately owned, 2 are housing authority. When I bought there were no problems but after six months one set of old folks moved out and the local housing authority decided to try one if their social experiments by moving in a family from hell (in the hope that being around 'nice' people would rub off on them). It didn't.
We've all now endured years of stupidly loud music, screaming street arguments, fights, lots of police presence, foul mouthed abusive kids, drug dealing, abuse (dad was recently removed for assaulting the kids - he's back now).
To be fair they've been far better of late and don't hugely impact on us anymore but it's taught me a valuable lesson and I would never buy near social housing again as it can be a nightmare and its not as if you can simply move as nobody else wants to live near these people and you have to drive past their badly maintained house to get to ours.

Having said that, the second house is lived in by a working couple who have been fine so again, it's all down to luck. The bad family don't work, never have, never will so they're there all the time, although their 18 yr old son (recently a father) is now in prison and that's helped.
You have to make a judgement call and hope for the best I'm afraid but it's not a gamble I'd take again.
Good luck!

We bought a new build last year. It's on a small-ish development (~70 houses) and it's well proportioned, light, airy and has plenty of storage - so not all new builds are crap (some are def rabbit hutches though). It's mainly big 3/4 bedroom houses plus quite a few big 5/6 bed houses and there are a few Maserattis (sp?) and Porsches (none of which are mine).

There are ~15 or so 'social' houses but all bar one are part ownership for 'key workers'. So far, so good, everyone is friendly. Whilst we were waiting to move we rented for a bit on a bigger estate were there was more 'not done a days work in their life housing' and whilst it wasn't great, it wasn't scary with gangs of feral kids roaming around.

So from my limited experience I'd say factor in how big the development is (bigger prob = worse), the type of social housing (rented -v- shared ownership), the % of social -v- private, and the size of the houses and the % make up (if it's lots of small 2/3 bed houses then they're more likely to be BTL so could be rented out to anyone).

EDIT: just to add - it's good that people learn that not everyone is like them so mixing housing stock is a good thing.

HTH.

Avoid if at all possible. I was very much in favour of this kind of development prior to living in one. It's horrible.

isn't there legislation dictating that all new housing developments have to have a certain percentage of social housing allocation available..?

that would make 'this kind of development' the only kind of development which I think is an absolutely great idea for many reasons

[url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/9525602/New-developments-can-be-built-without-social-housing.html ]telegraph article[/url]

one of the main differences between rented social housing and mortgaged social housing,is that the renters,havent got the money to pay off a huge debt to the bank and building society.

If you rent you dont have a material intrest in your property, and dont see it as an investment,but then again i see a lot of over priced houses, where owners have over borrowed to get a bigger house and then cant afford the repairs and maintance.

With social housing it depends a lot on the landlord about who the tennants are and their respoonsibilites to other tennants living near by.

With any house visit varios times of the day and night, and put the address in google etc, and nethouseprice.com, to see how many times the houses locally have been sold.

one of the main differences between rented social housing and mortgaged social housing,is that the renters,havent got the money to pay off a huge debt to the bank and building society.

and?

Many other countries in Europe have life-long renting as normal. It does not undo the very fabric of the universe and anarchy doth not reign on street corners.

and dont see it as an investment

I don't think that's exactly right..

I don't have a financial tie to my family [i]home[/i], but I still put a lot of time, money and effort into making it a nice cosy place for my kids to grow up in.. and equally I [i]invest[/i] a lot of effort into ensuring that they will have a healthy community to be part of, and a good environment to develop in..

It was thatcher who sold off the ex council housing stock and refused councils permsion to build or renew existing stock, rent or mortgage, we all need to have a roof and walls.

Some people only see the words 'wealth' and 'investment' as financial terms, rather than having wider meaning.

OK - we live in social housing provided by a housing association. Everyone in our street has a decent job. I have lived in much more upmarket "respectable" places than this, I prefer where I stay now as it's quieter, nobody bothers you and if folk see that you might need a hand with something they will offer to help and ask nothing in return.

Between my and my wife we have 4 degrees of various types (soon to be 5).

We bring in a good amount of money between us and could afford a mortgage on a house elsewhere, but we quite like it here and wont be moving any time soon.

and dont see it as an investment

I don't think that's exactly right..

I don't have a financial tie to my family home, but I still put a lot of time, money and effort into making it a nice cosy place for my kids to grow up in.. and equally I invest a lot of effort into ensuring that they will have a healthy community to be part of, and a good environment to develop in..

Quite a lot of people think renting is so wrong, i dont,and i see a lot of people investing in their council or housing authority home, not so much in private landlords homes who they see as grabbing.

I'm baffled as to why you would be wanting to buy a new build. I've not seen anything built in the last 10 years that was anything other than pokey, badly laid out, poorly constructed and on marginal land in the unknown end of town.

I would have agreed until we found out first home - was 6 yrs old, VERY well planned - somehow managed to fit 3 proper sized double bedrooms (two with en suites), family bathroom, we, large lounge, kitchen/diner, and built in garage, without feeling cramped! It is over three floors though....
The garden was small, which was an appeal for us!

There was social housing around the corner, which DID have its share of rusted bikes on their grass and thy did leave a fair bit of pointless litter on the communal grass, but we never had any grief from them in terms of violence/noise...

DrP

Yunki - this Govt is relaxing the obligations on developers to include affordable housing in their developments, because doing so was seen as an unfair burden on them.

[i]There was social housing around the corner, which DID have its share of rusted bikes on their grass[/i]

Niche retro SS's?

Have any of the shared/rented properties sold, I.e. why don't you just go and say hello? Just because they haven't got the opportunity to be able to afford a private ownership don't assume their (self edited to save banning)

Its still pretty much off plan (although the builds are quite progressed) so there's no real indication yet :/

Wouldn't go anywhere near a new build that was close, yet alone directly opposite social or affordable housing not only for the reasons already listed by lots of people above but also due to the huge loss you'll make if/when you sell it due partly to the premium you'll be paying (as its a new build) but mainly as people won't want to buy near/opposite social housing when its no longer a new build. Sorry.

Meh, I own an ex-council flat, one of 30 flats in 3 blocks. Had a problem with one other neighbour. Who was privately renting one of the other flats. Now I have a new patio, and the sun shines once more upon my life 🙂

Seriously though, I don't see what you describe as a real issue. You could be unlucky with your new neighbours, you could meet some lovely people. Same as anywhere else. As pointed out, isn't this the model for housing provision going forward?

@RichPenny - ex-council is very different from a new build with affordable housing next to it. For starters your block will be well looked after and from experience older council tenants are v grateful for what housing they got and therefore looked after it. Newer council tenants, or those in affordable housing do not look after it so much and then the problems begin.

Sorry to burst your bubble vanilla, but nothing you've said applies in my reality. In my block of 6 flats, 5 are private owned, the one problem neighbour was renting one of those flats. Both council tenants, who are opposite me, have been lovely. Their flat is in a better condition than mine! My neighbours are a mix of all ages.

My block is not particularly well looked after IMO. Genuine question, what is your experience of older versus newer council tenants?

Although most affordable housing schemes are for key workers such as nurses, teachers, fire-fighters and police officers, thousands of first-time buyers from other backgrounds are also able to take advantage of these government funded incentives, as some are open to anyone with a steady job.

What [i]exactly[/i] makes nurses, teachers, fire-fighters and police officers bad neighbours?

Who is the developer? And in what area? Outside of the central belt of Scotland and around London new build housing sales really haven't picked up much so you should be able to negotiate a good deal. My main bit of advice would be to avoid Barratts, try and find one of the smaller new build developers. Mansell homes are very good, though slightly more expensive.

Living near teachers ! Gallaghers come back.

An update:

We both went to have a long hard look around the house in question again today (it's an 850 house development called Abbotswood in Romsey for those that were wondering), whilst we were there someone was moving in to one of the rented housing association flats directly opposite.

They were all dressed head to toe in clothes from JD Sport's evening wear section.

We walked away feeling like we've just dodged a bullet.

Honeybadger - judging by the number of new developements going up locally here in north east scotland i think your wrong.

At least 5 different developments with 2 miles of my work. On land youd never buy a house on with half a brain and they are selling ! Floodplains and my favorite - between the airport and the railway line( east coast main line) That will be hell !

My tuppence worth - there are no hard and fast rules with mixed tenure(private and affordable) developments, some are succesfull while others are not. I work for a large national contractor doing private, HA or mixed developments and have seen plenty of them from adjudication level through to completion and visited a few a couple of years after completion.
A successfull development which i have been working on for 6 years is in Meir Heath on the Western side of Stoke which involved demolishing a load of post WW2 pre-fabricated houses and building a mixture of bungalows, 2&3 storey houses - some of which would be used as housing stock for the existing residents. The area was notorius for crime, vandalism and anti-social behaviour. As we started rehousing some of the locals in the new properties there were incidents of vandalism, burglary etc, what happened was the "good" locals who could see the benefit of the new development and the nice new houses they could possibly get, started to kick back against the handfull of scrotes who didn't wan't the new development. Within a short time there was a real sense of community and the scrotes were left very isolated. As part of the regeneration scheme, there was a lot ofconsultation with the existing residents and their views and requests were considred and implemented wherever possible. We have had quite a bit of success with our private sales as well, and the houses we have sold, do not suddenly have "For Sale" boards appearing once they realise they are amongst social / affordable housing.
We have another development in Camp Hill Nuneaton - that is the complete opposite, an absoulute nightmare.

This thread is a serious eye opener and worthy of both "Jesus wept" and "Wow, just wow".

Shakes head and walks off.

Radio 4 hand wringing welcome here!

whether rules are being relaxed or not the bigger and newer the development the greater the level of social/affordable housing there has to be. Depends on the nature of the housing and the occupants- lots of decent people who cant afford high prices, quite a few socially-housed dross. You wont know on a new build, its more obvious on established estates. I've gone to view houses and driven straight passed after looking at the neighbourhood- call it snobbery, social profiling, elitism or whatever but thanks to my job I'll make broad judgements (which I consider necessary for something as important as housing, and in my line of work I'd rather not have tyres slashed every week...). The social housing part of our estate (all on one street) is a pretty even mix of coppers, teachers, nurses, drug dealers and burglars.

We idly looked at an [s]offensive needless green belt development[/s] executive eco-town being knocked up in our area. Houses are on top of each other, and 4-bed houses come with a "covered car port" - we have a 2-bed with a garage and were hoping for a double garage due to bikes, motorbikes etc.

Not on a new development but maybe I can give you a picture of what it can be like nearly 20 years down the line (we've lived here 6 years). Small development of 20-ish houses, 7 private detached 4 beds (I live in one of these), 2 privately owned then the rest are HA owned and shared ownership. We're a small close in a medium sized village.

To be frank it's lovely. Most of those in the HA properties grew up in the village, most have lived in their houses for a while. Everyone does their bit and looks after what they've got. We might not all be best mates but everyone says hello, how are you etc.....

However, we had our house on the market last summer after seeing a lovely house we wanted. We had quite a bit of interest and a (low) offer. But the feedback we got from most is that whilst they liked our house they wouldn't put an offer in as they didn't like looking out to the shared/HA owned houses at the front (despite the fact we have open fields to the back) and the possible "problems associated" - there haven't been any problems, but that doesn't stop people's preconceptions.

One day ill have that issue hammerite , im attached to a cooncil house.

On my side is the fact we are miles from town so hopefully keep the gadgees away. And lets face it im probably more likely to be the problem owner than amy tennent. I like to play with dnb , power tools and v8s

I grew up on a council estate, most hassle we got was from an old couple who liked to flout the law by closing up closes through the estate to stop through traffic claimng them as their own land and putting up cctv cameras.

Everyone else got on well.

You may have dodged a bullet, but moving to Romsey? Surely that's akin to standing in front of a rail gun 😉

Romsey, compared to Southampton is a veritable Utopia!

*makes mental note to wave at gixer next time I'm at Meir Heath*

we live on a fairly nice estste.. 4/5 bed detached with a dozen or so social housing properties two doors up from us.. they stand out a mile. they all have satellite dishes and two cars on the drive that mostly stay there all day.

I live on a 600 house estate--95% 'social' housing-- would not want to live anywhere else.....there are a few anti-social people here, but they are kept in line 😉

So by your measurements im in social housing mr total shell.

Sky dish outside connected to nowt and at least 2 cars on the drive all day

I live in a shared ownership house because when the other half and I decided to buy, the market was still strong as we couldn't afford anything else. The houses tat we did look at that we could have bought all of we're awful. They were all in rough estates, not very nice ad generally a bit rank.

Admittedly our house is a bit unusual in he fact that its hit new - it's a 1920's end terrace. This is our first house and its he only way we could have got something of this size with a drive, a garage and a decent garden. As far as I know the other houses in our street are fully owned.

I don't think shared ownership is all that bad because in certain areas its all a lot of first time buyers can afford. Not so sure about the rented housing association stuff, but again it depends on the area. My aunt lives in Chipping Norton and a new estate was built there with social housing and a lot of people were snobby about it. In fact the houses are nice and the tenants aren't your typical housing association types. I guess it may be different in a place tats not so nice.

I do kind of understand why the planning policy tried to mix people from different backgrounds.

totalshell - Member
we live on a fairly nice estste.. 4/5 bed detached with a dozen or so social housing properties two doors up from us.. they stand out a mile. they all have satellite dishes and two cars on the drive that mostly stay there all day.

I call troll 🙂

Jesus Christ, hen, breathe!.

Another first post wonder 🙄

Come in red bands, that's you used up today's Internet capital letter budget.

Yup.
You boobed.
Please don't take it out on us.

Interesting comments as ever...I sometimes think this should be renamed ClarksonTrackWorld (apart from the fact he hates bikes) Anyway, Im sure theres a proposed repeal of the mandatory social housing being proposed by the the Condems for next year. So perhaps wait awhile, save a bit more deposit and then move when you think its safe. Of course you could get some horrible neighbours whatever you do. You pays your money you take your choice.

I worked as a gas engineers in social housing, going on the new estates and in the new properties made my piss boil, they would all and i mean all be trashed, they dont have to pay there hard earned money for it or fix it so they treat it like shit. My mate lives next door to a bunch of tracksuit warriors, hes ex 59 commando so a quick threat at night time when they were acting like only that type can andnthey have behaved ever since as the path of least resistance was cut of for them

It's thread like these that make we wonder if I live in the same country as everyone else.....

As for cars on the drive - maybe they cycle to work? My car (when I had one) would sit for weeks on end outside the house without moving an inch...

I don't understand the posts with no punctuation. It's like streams of consciousness. A bizarre concioisness and possibly alien.

This thread is ace. Its like a magnet to catch all the ****s....... And yes I do realise it now includes me. Bravo chaps keep it up.

Edit... Someones removed the bestest posts 🙁

Affordable housing on new build estates SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED! And I'll tell you why! We bought a new build house 8 months ago. We were given to believe that there would only be 15% affordable housing - for public sector workers, nurses, teachers, police etc. We could see no problem with that. Respectable working tenants should be fine as our neighbours? Apart from the fact after we moved into our four bed 'luxury' new home ,we found that the affordable housing is in fact occupied by those in social deprivation, the very poor, low income, benefits dependent families, each that clearly come with their own serious issues! And more like 50% affordable housing - to me they're just a posher version of typical council houses. The tenants DO NOT DESERVE TO BE HOUSED IN LUXURY NEW HOMES WHEN THEY HAVE NO RESPECT FOR THE COMMUNITY. Barking dogs, six plus children per family, long term jobless, high NOISE levels, high police presence - that's the reality of it all! Not something we wanted for our family. Even the new build school is as rough as a ghetto (the ofsted report backs that statement up), no joke. There are always several police cars parked outside the school gates. It's awful walking past the school at the end of the school day, the 'parents' really do take a lot to be desired, and I tend to avoid shopping at the local Tesco Express, opposite the school, for the same reasons! It's over run with feral children, and illiterate sounding parents who have no idea of discipline! What makes it worse is that we know these 'affordable housing' tenants pay no rent and no council tax, yet they get to live in a luxury new build just like us - only difference is we work hard to pay our mortgage, and we teach our children right from wrong! I don't know whose idea it was to build such homes so close to private homes, because it is wrong! Fine, if these affordable housing tenants must have brand spanking new houses, then build them far enough away from respectable working mortgage payers, so as not to cause our lives a nuisance!

You wouldn't believe how happy that's made me.

Please make my day and tell me how much your house has dropped in value in the last 8 months.

I'm sure the Daily Hate is running a campaign to get it's handful of IT literate readers to create accounts on here and post stuff (to counter the Guardian reader bias)....

Rule of thumb...

[u][b]Never ever buy a new build property in a recession[/b][/u]

Builders/developers margins are cut too fine, ergo the quality goes through the floor (literally). The cheaper the property the worse it gets

Regardless of the NHBC guaruntee or not, all that means is every major building system (roof, windows, doors, heating, electrics) will have been specced & costed to last just over ten years, i.e. just outwith the NHBC guaruntee.

I have seen some appalling faults, huge snagging lists and scarey construction standards, and sh@tty attitudes even from the "quality" builders and developers, at the lower end of the market this trait is amplified.

No matter what they claim in the advertising they don't tend to answer to their customers (after all it ain't exactly a business model based on lots of "repeat business" is it?) they answer to their [u]shareholders[/u], once sold it ain't their problem really and at the end of the day THEY can afford better solicitors than you and will play the "who runs out of money first" game through the courts.

See it from the inside which is one of the reasons I don't work in the industry... cynical moi? 😕

Oh and as to the middle class snobs who deplore social housing...

Becareful as YOU are the ones in this day and age who are more likely to be end up repossesed and in social housing when the world realises it doesn't need your "Telephone Sanitiser Advertising Sales Account Executive" or "Corporate Re-Financing Manager" skill set....

There is more nobility and honour in a the most menial job than there ever will be in "middle management" role.

TooTall - Member

I'm baffled as to why you would be wanting to buy a new build. I've not seen anything built in the last 10 years that was anything other than pokey, badly laid out, poorly constructed and on marginal land in the unknown end of town.

My last house was a new build where all the houses on the opposite side of the road were "affordable housing".

Surprising though it may seem, the people in the houses opposite turned out to be completely normal.

Surprising though it may seem, the people in the houses opposite turned out to be completely normal.