Semi-detached with social housing

Personally i get small house in good area and i wouldn't live next to social housing. Nothing against it. But you have to think of resaleability.. If you have concerns dont do it.. I

After several bad experiences I would never buy another home that was attached to others, regardless of whether they were private or council.

Noisy neighbours can make your life hell, no sleep, constant stress, it's not worth it.

I would rather live in a cheaper, less nice home with the peace and quiet that only comes with no adjoining neighbours.

If I couldn't afford to buy an unattached home, I would rather rent until I could, because then you can just move if you have problem neighbours.

Drive by the area after dark, take a walk around. It depends, my sister bought an expensive new build, there are a few apartments that were sold to a housing body, mostly adults as they’re apartments, there has been some trouble with the tenants and she is planning on moving.
I live in an ex social housing estate, it is mixed, the houses are over 70 years old so the majority of neighbours are settled and from previous generations in the area. It is quiet enough.
If the flats are built a long time it should be more settled.

Living next to three flats after the joy of detached is one hell of a risk. I wouldn't do it (as someone who moved out from a Victorian London terrace to a home counties 60s detached to escape shitty neighbours) And I do think the social housing element is relevant. Not because "all social housing residents are nightmares" or whatever, but because you're likely to get more people per flat, simply due to the housing shortage leading to chronic over-occupation. Meaning eg a family of 4 stuffed into a 1 bed because the kids are expected to share while the parents sleep in the living room, etc.

As someone who grew up in council housing and is currently looking for a ex council property to buy (bigger bedrooms than 1930s semis) I say no. I used to own a 5 bedroom semi next door to two flats and the tenants were a fucking pest. It’s ok dealing with one set of shit neighbours but when you could have 3 individual sets then it’s just too much. I had a woman with learning disabilities who set fire to her stove twice and her peadophile boyfriend as my best neighbours, yep you read that correctly. The nonce was the best of a bad bunch. Then I had the happy hardcore music blasting until 4am incel. Then the worst the drug addicts who would leave their DS with me whilst they knocked lumps out of one another until one had an heart attack and died during a fight and lastly was a drug dealer who’d been in prison for attempted murder. He was a special cunt.
All in all, maybe one set of neighbours i could have coped with, but to have the 2 flats both occupied (and in your case 3 flats) with wronguns it’s too much. And statistically social housing is going to have worse tenants even if that sounds like Im tarring all with the same brush, which Im not, it’s just being realistic.
It’s such a shame because massive semi detached houses are so beautiful. The one I had was, it was just the area was full of antisocial people.

No. My friend is in a semi with an adjoining house that has been converted into two flats. Upstairs neighbours are a lovely family. Downstairs neighbour has been stored there and ignored for 10+ years despite openly smoking a crack pipe on the doorstep and carrying out a string of anti social behaviour to the neighbouring properties. Nobody in authority is interested, because then they'd actually have to do something and it's much easier to just leave the crack addicted schizophrenic man where he than actually address the issue. Too expensive, too difficult. You'll never get anything sorted if you are unlucky enough to have issues with the social tenants

No - not particularly because they’re council, (although that would cross my mind,) more that 3X neighbours/noise/cars/chances of one set of them being idiots…I’d be inquiring why the vendors are moving.

Having been detached twice I'd struggle going back to having to hear neighbours through the wall
Edited to add... social housing or not! Our last neighbours were stuck up pricks but had annoying loud dinner parties

It depends. Too many variables.

What size are the flats? 2 bed - potential for up to 5 people per floor (couple of adults, couple of kids and a baby). 1 bed or studio - more likely to be one or two people per floor. Also "Victorian" doesn't necessarily mean anything. We have friends in a Victorian mill workers row who can hear everything next door but the semis the next road over were built for much richer people and have thicker walls.

We all own houses - £500 k plus and our bottom fence has a garden and social housing flats on the others side. The flats look like a large house, there is one lad on his own aged 25 had been on housing list for a while, a single mum with 3 primary school age children, a couple with his mum and their two children. We haven’t heard a peep out of them ever!

actually that’s a lie the mum we heard shouting at the eldest to pack it in once over the summer when they had been trampolining for hours. We silently applaud her patience.

So no it wouldn’t bother me / plus you have someone you can complain to if needed but home owners are fair more entitled than renters

Absolutely not and I grew up in a council house

Having grown up on a council estate, I'd say it depends on that particular street. I remember some being horrendous with anti social behaviour, but our street (we lived an ex council house) was absolutely fine and never any issues from either council tennant neighbours or those that also owned their houses.

I live in a London Victorian terrace and next door has been converted into 2 privately owned flats. Never had any noise issues but there is only 1 person living in each flat.

I wouldn’t buy a house attached to a council owned property as I wouldn’t want to have to deal with the council for any issues. E.g. we needed work down to our roof and chimney. The issue impacted us and our neighbours but we sorted it between ourselves, got quotes and split the cost. Or when we were doing an extension we needed a party wall agreement. I dread to think how long those things would have taken if I was dealing with the council as opposed to directly with my neighbour.

Nope. I've lived next to two social houses in my life (one has three flats, the other a house) and they were both a complete nightmare at one point or another.

The landlord of the house stopped renting via the local HA because the tenants completely wrecked the place. Don't get me wrong, we've had lovely tenants in the flats (two spring to mind) but we've also had domestic abusers, and one tenant was so bad she was taken to court - twice.

I live in a terraced row, not flats but still being joined on to people can be noisy if there are neighbours with little consideration.
Thank god my old neighbours moved, 3 kids running up and down the stairs against the joint wall was hell. I wouldn’t move next to flats.
It’s perfectly possible to have consideration for neighbours and keep noise to a reasonable level. With 3 adjoining flats, that might mean one of those neighbours could have a real impact.

I think the fact that there is potentially 3 nightmare neighbours is the biggest issue, not whether it’s social housing, you could be lucky and have great people but this is the case wherever you live really regardless of whether it’s owners or tenants.

I personally wouldn’t do this myself it could be a huge issue.

I wouldn't really care if it was SH or not. In my area even the estates are 50-50. My street is about 60-40 SH.

The fact it's a block of flats obviously means potentially three times the noise of a house containing say, an elderly couple. But a house could contain a noisy family with six kids?

They could all be perfectly reasonable neighbours.

It's not like it's 300 flats, a hostel full of substance addicts or an HMO with 18 'dwellings' that used to be a two bed house.

Im a senior manager in social housing and honestly I wouldn't. The issue is that tenants come and go and social housing is in such short supply that it is, a lot of the time, the most vulnerable and/or chaotic individuals that get housed. Social housing has changed beyond all recognition in the last 4/5 years.

I lived in a semi which was joined with a housing association property. For many years no problem, then the tenant died and the new family were a nightmare. After three years we moved away. Another semi in the street also was 50/50 private and housing association again no problem for years then a new tenant moved in even worse than our experience drugs, parties which went on the whole weekend. Down to pure luck if your neighbours are decent people or not. The only positive is that if the problem neighbours are house owners there isnt much you can do, but housing associations/ councils can evict tenants for anti social behaviour. We chose not to make a complaint we would have had to declare it if we tried to sell the house - easier to move in silence

No I wouldn’t, but not because they’re social housing but because it’s 3 flats. I don’t mind a semi detached house sharing a wall with one house, but three flats means three chances of noisy neighbors, and accumulated the noise might be more.

I agree with others who've said it doesn't matter whether they are council or not, it just depends who is in them

We lived in a row of terraces, ours was one house and next door was split into three flats. The guy who lived in his council flat was lovely and quiet, the guy who owned his top floor flat was an absolute dick of colossal proportions and caused us endless issues

I think you'd be mad to move from a detached to be honest. Not worth the risk.

Blimey thats bad! I honestly dont know how you cope.

OP - as others have said it’s the 3 households that would put me off not the fact it’s social housing. Think about it .You could have:
Flat 1 - person who plays music at all hours. Flat 2 no music but young children who make a reasonable amount of noise. Flat 3 couple who argue the time.
You might be able to put up with one of these things but all three would be so difficult.

You might of course hear no noise at all but the issue is you wont know until too late.

yes, this is my view too.

Putting hard hat on but I've decided to not even go and view my dream house because a SH flat block is right behind and overlooks it.

As @Locutus2000 said, it's not about thinking all SH tenants are "scum" - absolutely not. My worst neighbour was a private renter too. It's because the demand for SH is now so high and therefore the most in need (which often means the most complex needs) are prioritised, rather than the 'decent families/individuals who just can't afford private rents'. If there was a guarantee it would only be the latter I'd love to have them as neighbours, unfortunately it's just too big a risk.