Social housing on new build estates

[pangeapanda]

I’m absolutely not looking for a bun fight on council housing tenants, we’re classed as living in affordable housing (shared ownership).

We live on a new build estate, it’s a mix of outright owned/mortgaged, shared ownership & social housing. From what I understand, a certain percentage of new homes have to be allocated for affordable housing or council housing. I imagine they’re moving away from building entirely socially housed ‘council estates’ now?

Half of the estate is houses, a line of part owned properties then quite a few blocks of social housing apartments. I guess my question is, why do they segregate the council tenants from the home owners? I thought they’d be more likely to pepper them throughout the estate now to avoid pockets of antisocial behaviour.

There’s a clear divide between the estate and one side is noticeably less nice. At the same time, some of the houses sell for nearly 500k so people might be apprehensive, rightly or wrongly, about buying where there may be a lot of turnover or perceived antisocial behaviour.

Is there a reason they lump all the affordable housing together then? And should it be considered a good thing?

Attitudes to social housing and SH tenants are going to have to change as for more and more people being a SH tenant will be the best they can aspire to.
In the relatively recent past it may have been that homeless, perhaps troubled, families were in SH, but with the planned increase in SH this will no longer be the case - it will also be the less well-off but law-abiding, decent, working but poorly paid surely. Lets hope so.

Soooo to sum up Mumsnet.

'People who work and pay full rent in SH should move into private for those in need'

As long as they don't live nearby......

Makes sense.

Actually SH was invented so people from all walks of life could rent a home.

No. Whatever the price is it should be the same for ALL. No preferential treatment. That is fair and equal

Are we talking at cross purposes here? I must admit a typo in your first reply to mine did confuse me a bit. My point is that all the houses regardless of who lives in them should be the same build spec.

Where and when is this planned increase taking place? In parts of London a homeless family has virtually no chance of getting SH. The waiting list in the borough I’m from is currently 32 years(!) for a 3-4 bed family home down to a wait of 5 years for a 1 bed. The council actually removed thousands of people from the list a couple of years back after informing them they will never be housed in their lifetime.

Same spec if sold but if social housing it should be a reduced spec

Nobody in their right mind would buy a £500k house next to a council house so they have to segregate them.

It isn’t so much the developer’s decision on what percentage of the deal will be social housing.. rather being told by the council they will only get planning permission if there is a certain percentage.

Well from my experience SH brings trouble; drugs, criminality, littering, screaming and antisocial behaviour.

My sister lives on a new build estate. She did the part ownership scheme, and unbeknownst to her, she’s mixed in with all the social housing. It’s been no end of trouble, constant streams of anti-social families and behaviour. Her current next door neighbour smokes dope all day, which wafts into her house.

Hey I'm wondering if you would have time to expand on this a bit?

I'm on the housing register and we have a ton of new builds in our city. I'm assuming if we are offered anything it will be a new build and I'm simultaneously excited and anxious. Is there anything she has mentioned specifically about what they dread with new builds?

Were I live in Scotland they have just built houses and bungalows that looks over the sea and they have used the same materials though the whole housing estate.And it's social and brought homes

Your talking nonsense. A lot of these new build estates are often some of the most expensive in the wider area. The people buying these homes in many areas are often some of the top earners or people who have climbed the ladder. It is not their station to be living on a council estate. It is the SH tenants who have been lucky to land a spot living in 1 of the most expensive areas in my region and many others.

In my immediate area where I now live in my 1st owned home, the house price was very low compared to these houses, at least half the price of the cheapest houses on the new build estates, but there are no SH in a 20 min walk distance. Most the people living here and buying here are from working class backgrounds, who may be able to afford to move to the new estates after years of putting into the saving accounts that is our current houses, but we could never just get a spot onto 1 of these new estates at a 1st step without years of working our way there. It doesn't seem right that professionals such as my nurse, mechanic, police type neighbours can only aspire to a new build but others just get given it. And yeah I know some SH tenants work and pay rent. But the rent will be less that what we will be paying out in our cheaper area, and some don't work at all or it will just come out of the benefits.

I dont know why councils or SH don't buy up properties which come available in areas like mine really, surely it would cost less than buying a spot on these new builds. There would be less of a gap between what their neighbours are paying out for their mortgages so less scope to complain that it isn't fare. And would spread the SH out further so if there was 1 bad egg. They would be less likely to find an alli to spread the chaos.

I'm ready for my next step up, finding it hard to find a place that ticks all the boxes that isn't on a new build site. They all have the drive, larger garden and ensuite im after. But I will wait as long as it takes, as I don't want to live on a new build site, knowing the sacrifices I have made to get there. Knowing that I would much rather be in a spacific role that is lower paid to the 1 I got, but can't afford to get where I want to be to take the role I would love instead of endure. I dont want to see others just getting it handed on a plate. Otherwise what was the point of it all when I could have got there without having ambition, instead of all the stress and studying and working to high pressure and expectations.

My parents are and always have been on a council estate. I worked hard to never be on 1 myself, not to take the long, expensive & less secure way to end up the same. With the same risk of a dodgy neighbour moving in and causing hell for the rest. As what happened on their previously lovely council estate in the last few years

It might be the most expensive in the area you can afford. But again, that's all you can afford. If you had more money, you could buy a detached house in a really nice area with no SH tenants. You don't have that money so you have to buy on a housing estate among SH tenants. That's Your Lot.

I don’t agree. Shared ownership buyers have an incentive to protect and invest in their property, just like private buyers. Social housing tenants don’t lose money if they trash their environment.
We’re lucky at the moment, the block of social housing across the road has stable tenants that have all been there years and we all get on well. There were a couple of problem tenants in the first few years, but they moved on.

Part ownership is social housing. What does your sister mean unbeknownst to her she’s mixed in with it?! She lives in social housing!

Presumably the poster will move up housing ladder to the large detached house you describe as their earnings increase and their career progresses.

Maybe they will if they have a career with those types of prospects. Either way, they will always be in the best place they can afford

I agree shared ownership is social housing but the poster’s sister is obviously referring to people who have been housed by the council. I bought my first property via shared ownership and many of the other SO residents in my new build block clearly drew a distinction between themselves and council tenants.

I think due to style of the properties.
15y ago I bought a discounted property on a new estate. After 2.5y we were able to sell it and move to a larger full priced property pn the estate.
My DFS was 3 bed but had no drive, no garage, no en suite bathroom, the shared ownership and council poperities were the same as ours. It was a bit basic spec. The rest of the 3 beds on the etsate had a garage and driveway and an en suite upstairs, the bedrooms were a touch bigger too and there were more units in the kitchen!
My privately owned one was a 4 bed (none of the social ones were 4 bed) and also had a nicer kitchen, en suite, garage & driveway
The estates near me do have them in small rows that are peppered through the estates rather than all in ome but you can tell which blocks are which due to the lack of driveway! I dont think its in the builders interests to have a semi thats one of each, it would put potential buyers off knowing their neighbour is council tenant. I know it sounds judgey and the majority of social housing tenants are perfectky lovely/normal people. But everyone knows at least one of those stereo typical council house families... Nobody wants to spend money buying a house and risking having vicky pollard and her 17 feral kids housed next door 😂

She ‘owns’ her house, she pays a mortgage (albeit on only part of the property). She doesn’t receive any benefits, she can’t be rehoused by the council. Her neighbours don’t own their homes, they have no respect for the properties. She’s had many problem families, drug dealers, drug takers etc. Most are there for a year maximum and then get moved on.

It’s not the same as shared ownership at all.

That's not necessarily the case. Not everyone chooses to spend the maximum they could afford on property. Sometimes they choose to live in a cheaper property and invest money in other ways. It's all down to personal preference if you have the luxury of choice, which obviously not everyone does.

Then they have accessible choices don't they? If you choose to live in East London over somewhere with a lower crime rate because you have the assets to make that choice, then you deal with the consequences.

It would be like me choosing to live in Madagascar instead of Switzerland and then complaining how hot it is in this country I chose to live in which is situated in a place which makes it warm and I could leave any time.

There are large developers working in our area now, their first blocks were all private and very expensive. Some later blocks are all social housing, with smaller properties - this means that more SH can be provided for the same cost. Some new blocks are still all private and slightly larger homes with a better spec to attract private buyers. The most recent are "affordable" and shared ownership.
This is a logical way for developers to work, they're in it for the profit and will build the most profitable properties first.
Some posters have written that all the homes should have been built to the same spec but I disagree, the local authority want to provide as much SH as they can for the money. Could I remind you that this is our money, the funding they get from our council tax and sometimes government subsidy which comes from our taxes? Personally I don't want them to spend my money on just a few high spec homes, I'd rather that they built more even if they were lower spec or slightly smaller. Every extra home is one less family on the council waiting list.
The developers tailor the spec to suit their buyers: lower spec for local authorites, high spec for buyers who want more luxurious properties. The "middle" spec is for owner occupiers who can afford something more than basic.