I'm obsessed with housing estates

InstantDestiny

Obviously, the ones you are visiting are making poor choices...that is why you are visiting them!

Crikey! I've heard it all!

Coming in very late to this thread but my mum used to take me to look at new builds when I was 3/4 maybe even though she had absolutely no intention of moving to one.

Back then the builders would even let you walk around half finished houses.

And do you keep an equally eagle-eyed watch on the non-social housing? Do the owner-occupiers without exception keep pristine lawns, a strict bin schedule, and polite, well-mannered children? It must be a FT job watching over all 290 houses and awarding demerits for unkempt lawns or feral children. You must be run ragged.

@LakieLady I have social housing on my new build estate. We all got given a map of the estate that shows which houses are social housing and which ones were bought. The social houses are not well maintained at all, I am unsure why this is, but not a single one off the social housing (on an estate on 290 houses) is kept well, rubbish all the over place, bins not put out to be collected regularly meaning the excess rubbish is picked up by other people, gardens not cut and kids that run wild, I have had to knock at a few parents houses as I had my property damaged by kids from the social housing that was caught on camera. I am unsure why this is and why people do not take pride in a house they live in regardless of whether they own it or not. Harsh words as it is categorising them but 100% true and proven

I grew up in, and have lived my whole life in, inner city "period" houses with "character" and I aspire to buy a new build flat. Reason being you have to be loaded to make these homes comfy. You have to heat the fuck out of them for a house that feels warm. Stuff is always breaking or needing redoing. Windows and doors need redoing or you have cold air coming in. If you're coastal you're dealing with mould. Sometimes that "character" verges into "creepy". Your patio or garden is always overlooked even if you don't think it is. You become one of those obsessives who puts all their free headspace and money into improving and renovating the thing you apparently "fell in love with".
When I finally have a chance to buy I'd like to get a nicely designed flat with a balcony and good heat/sound insulation with a view over some kind of water.

I live on a new build estate and did exactly the same before I bought there. I also now drive around my own estate daily to have a nose at the houses they are still building

I left a none housing estate to go live on one.
I love it im left alone and no one cares what i do.
Living on the posh side as i call it was hell neighbours looking down on the rest always gossiping about how they would never live on such estates.
How there for the low income.
Always something to complain about he or she has not worked in a few weeks her child wore that top last week etc.
Id be to scared to walk around if i live up there im knocking on your door again as ive not seen you for 24 hours are you ok (fuck off) number 28 went to tescos i saw marry walking her dog at 5 Did you here jeffs son has got a flat on a housing estate feel bad for him as he cant afford to buy a home it was none stop.
One neighbour told me her friends daughter had a baby at 19 how awful and shes on that new estate up there.
I said i work with young mums and im moving on the worst estate we have in this town. Well she said it will take time for you to sell i said no i rent i could never afford to buy a home her look said it all.

After 5 long years of stuck up people i moved.
I love where i live in my little council flat on my crap housing estate I've been here 4 years now and never want to leave. My neighbours are lovely ones in her 80s always find someone to help if needed.
I fit right in more down to earth this side of town made some good friends that understand that life is not all glits and glam.

Not the case for everyone but it was for me.

Hear hear, @Kokeshi123.

You are bonkers. But harmless.

Having just read the synopsis of Vivarium, I see where you are coming from OP.
I previously had a delivery job, and these estates sometimes have people moving in and living in their homes before the streets have signs on, and before they are registered on google maps or sat nav. I drove round and round looking for a particular house.
There also are usually no landmarks to get a bearing from, such as trees, as the estates have been built on previously open fields.

I think I get what you mean OP. New build estates to me feel like film sets- everything is so new and identical - all the doors, windows, drives etc are identical and perfect. It’s like it’s 2D and not real.

I kind of get it. Particularly if we haven't lived in one, they can be a new and different environment and one can feel a poorly articulated desire to see, to explore, to get our heads round them.

For me, the big issue with the stupid Niddy Noddy housing estates is that they are located on the edge of towns where every single bloody journey is going to involve a car. We're facing an environmental crisis and this isn't the way we should be building. Not to mention the fact that the UK's congestion issues continue to get worse every year.

The UK needs to face reality (ie that it is now a really densely populated country) and shift towards a higher % of apartment living and building on brownfield sites around public transportation links. Brits won't do this, though; witness the hysterical meltdowns every time someone suggests building on a car park near a station.

Whilst I agree with your sentiment, London has many 'boring' areas, it's overpriced, overpopulated, and overrated. It's no fun living there unless you're well off. And many areas that are NOT London are anything but boring. The area I live is f*cking gorgeous. Don't want to identify where it is, but it's an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Also, I wouldn't live in London if I could live there for free. I don't know why people harp on about it and act like the Holy Grail of places to live. I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than live in London.

ALSO, I know many towns where social housing is lovely. Some roads/ closes/ cul-de-sacs etc were built for private sale, and the council or a housing association bought them for their housing stock, and they are now social housing. Some people in the social housing properties that were originally built for private sale are the envy of many people who are buying.

People can be snobs, and sneer at people in social housing, but many people in social housing have got the last laugh.

Wow the snobbery of people on here, lots of people live in ‘boring ‘ areas but we can’t all live in London 🙈 Lots of people like and enjoy living in new build estates I dont understand what so awful. Also every house is just some bricks and mortar till personalise it and make it your own.

But you've said yourself that you couldn't think of anything worse than living in one! That's sneering and looking down on people!

laneways? Huh

Yes, I think that’s it for me. A smallish development of about 80 houses was built on the edge of the village I lived in 2016/17, and something about watching this tightly-constructed, entirely uniform set of house-lined roads grow on what had been pasture where we used to go blackberrying was weirdly compelling — the raw earth, the destruction of habitat, the names the developer gave the house designs (the Ingleby, the Holden, the Avondale), the name of the development itself (developer trying to tie it organically to the village where virtually all residents had opposed the development on the grounds of traffic and a badly overstretched GP), the names given to the roads (family names from the village war memorial to those who died in WWI), the weirdly stagey show house with scaled down furniture and elaborately-set dining table and scents to cover the smell of paint and new carpet adhesive.

OP, read Hilary Mantel’s Beyond Black — it’s mostly a very black comedy about a medium who works on the outer edges of London, but there’s a very satirical episode where she buys and moves into a new build.

Each tot heir own but couldn't think of a more boring hobby than driving around these -pretty much identical to each other- houses 😂

I don’t get it but you’re NBU to have this interest.

I once visited Huf Haus in Hamburg Germany. A little village of show houses you could buy like a flat pack to build where you like. Fascinating place.

My daughter lives on a new estate. It's very Dutch in design and deliberately urban rather than suburban. Several different designs of house and a few flat. There is no social housing but some so called 'affordable' housing and some of these are shared ownership.

I live on a Barratt estate and have views of woods and countryside from our doorstep. The location is one of the reasons we chose the house which is also warm and well insulated. I used to live in a Victorian cottage which was a money pit - no thanks, never again.

There is nothing to stop anyone buying a house anywhere and renting it out privately to anyone they like who may or may not 'lower the tone'.

No.

Love this post you describe so much of what I see in the better planned "new estates" near us.

You need to get on twitter rather than Mumsnet OP. This isn’t that unusual. Lots of people are interested in planning and design. It’s not unusual for people to like visiting 1950s estates, garden cities, 80s Po Mo etc. DP and I both do it, but not to an obsessive degree for the benefit of those posters who think any hobby outside knitting is a sign of autism.

I agree that there’s something weirdly fascinating about the pokey 90s and 00s estates.

The OP said she couldn't think of anything worse than living in one. Definitely sneery and also lacking in imagination because there are many worse places.