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?

Of course its a shame when decent people just want to live a normal life that is runied by a bunch of losers. Nothing to do with budgets and money, doesnt cost anything to be a decent human.

@Squishedpassengersure maybe - not sure why that means I should be happy that they’re making my life a misery

On the large new build estate near me the site plan showed which properties were the social housing. They were all put together and are right next to the main road, in a boggy area. They also have much smaller gardens than the equivalent sized privately owned houses.

I presume they put them together so that the owned houses won't have any social housing on their streets which would devalue their property. Driving past one day I saw something I'd read about but never seen myself, two women, presumably neighbours, sitting outside on their steps, smoking and wearing dressing gowns and slippers at 2 in the afternoon.

According to my retired policeman neighbour mixing social housing with owned doesn't work. Apparently the idea is that the social tenants see how owners take care of their houses, take pride in their local area, see their neighbours regularly going to work etc with the hope that the SH tenants will absorb some of that behaviour.
But all it does is enable an increase in vandalism and theft such as garage and shed break ins as the anti social element find easy pickings amongst their neighbours.

“I have seen estates go through total demolition and redevelopment for SH”
they would’ve already been social housing- no social housing provider can buy a private estate, bulldoze it and replace with SH 😂
regeneration is fantastic- but it’s replacing end of life social housing with new and modern social housing, not replacing private homes with SH.

I never said these estates weren't SH did I? You move the same people from the high rises to the new houses, they are still the same people.

As I mentioned upthread, it’s a small minority! For what it’s worth, the house we back onto is owned fully and they smoke weed, have house parties and do balloons in their garden too. Maybe it’s just where I live or I’ve just been exceptionally unlucky with the plot.

We’d have loved to have bought outright. Neither of us were able to live rent free with parents while saving, I’m aware it can be done without but privately renting/room sharing is costly, especially in London.

We moved further out without knowing the area and got new jobs. Didn’t see the point in throwing anymore money away privately renting hoping we’d be able to get on the ladder someday. Our combined mortgage and rent payment is less than what it’d cost to rent locally anyway.

There is a change, which is the de-ghettoisation of social housing. Yes, back in the day there were a few notorious estates in every town.
The new model is integration- why shouldn’t everyone live together?! It’s proven to be more beneficial for children who grow up in social housing in terms of their outcomes to be in a mixed area.

it is the funding model- developers must give back the public purse in exchange for all the profit they make building and selling houses.

The profit on market sales fund the build of social housing. Isn’t that a brilliant model? The government can contribute minimally and money comes indirectly from the wealthy. What’s not to love?!

“Pepper-potting” did used to be a planning requirement but I think some of the social housing providers did find that harder to manage, esp in blocks of flats. Worth asking your councillor about the policy in your council.

Is shared ownership really that great? My neighbour just sold her shared ownership house and it was a bloody nightmare for her. Never mind the HA got out of doing any repairs. It was only an inheritance that allowed neighbour to get out of shared ownership and become a ‘real’ homeowner.

A police officer would not know enough about this to make a comment like “it doesn’t work”

you shouldn’t listen to people who would clearly have very little knowledge

It is if you can’t afford to buy your own property

Opinion is very much mixed on that.

What do you mean? No one is forced to do it if they don’t want to. If they can’t afford to buy a property but want the security that comes with home ownership it’s a great option

it’s particularly good for people who expect their salaries to increase so they will naturally have additional funds to buy a further shares or a house outright.

where people go wrong is they seem to be under the impression that their 25% share of a flat will somehow turn into the ability to buy full property, as though they’re on a more traditional “housing ladder”

I live far enough from the grotty new build estates for it not to affect us day to day. But for those on them, particularly those mortgaged to the hilt, there's a lot not to love about it. Imagine overstretching to get your mortgage and escape to the suburbs only to find the vile behaviour has followed you out there

And I don't think it's great for people with limited income to land in the suburbs where there is poor public transport either.

So I would say it is a pretty unmitigated disaster

As he was an officer for 30 years, ending up in a senior rank, and continues to have friends and family in the force I think he would know enough about crime in the local area to be able to have a very informed opinion actually.

It's much more complex than that because SO comes with a host of complexities that make selling harder

There’s a small set of houses in the area I live in- about 15 were built and 2 are council houses. Really lovely, well built new builds overlooking a park. They went for 700k.
Now they are a nightmare to sell because the 2 families that moved into the council ones are absolutely vile. They trash the small play park that everyone looks out onto, constant comings and goings of dealers and ‘friends.’ Their kids are a menace and a pain at the local school. Well known in the area and the only way to sell your house would be to someone new to the area.
It’s horrible to say but I would never buy next to a council house. Of course you can have terrible neighbours from any walk of life but there is a higher proportion or chance in council housing.

It would be even better if we had an adequate police force and a functioning court system so that there was not the behaviour to begin with, of course. I don't blame developers for adopting the approach they do given this.

And agree that you can be anti-social and in owner occupied property.

Oh FFS! I've lived in my SH house for nearly 18 years, both DH and I work FT and don't claim any benefits. Our estate is a mix of SH, privately owned and privately rented. All peppered throughout the estate. The most trouble comes from those who privately rent. Oh and I'm currently wearing pjs, fluffy socks, and a fluffy pink dressing gown at 2.30 in the afternoon whilst I WFH.

Not necessarily- it just depends how desirable your property is, like any. I’ve seen them fly off the shelves, I’ve seen people unable to sell.

the main problem with shared ownership is customers not understanding what the product actually is, and expecting to be homeowners for little money.

They do have to accept the downsides, the advantage of which is they didn’t have to get 90% mortgage and save a 10% deposit (which they can’t afford to do either of anyway)

it’s not an alternative to home ownership- it’s an alternative to renting

I work hard to pay my rent, why should I have to put up with antisocial behaviour because I can't afford a mortgage?

so? He still only knows about crime, and believe it or not, that’s not the only thing you judge success or failure by in society

I live on an "executive estate" that's 3-4 years old. It's the only estate in the area where none of the privately owned houses are less than 4 bed. We didn't pick it specially, it was in the right place at the right time.

The "affordable" 2 and 3 bed semi and terrace homes are all at the outside of the estate, leaving the core all owner occupied 4 and 5 bed detached.

I'm sorry to say that what little trouble we have on this estate all comes from those social houses at the end of the roads. Doorbells rung by passing children, kids on bikes riding on drives between the parked car and the garage door, broken equipment in the new playground, dogs allowed to crap on pavements and verges, rubbish left in front gardens, bins left outside the garden fence, the two guys each with an illegal roaring straight-through exhaust (especially annoying at 06.20)

Sadly this mirrors our experience on a previous estate and if the social houses had been mixed in, we would not have bought here.

There's a 600 house estate being built up the road by Castle Green. One side of the mainroad is all social housing/shared ownership. The other side, roughly the same in size, is all owner occupied. The construction is all timber frame (which would be a complete no for me) but it will be interesting to see in a few years time how the two halves of the estate mature.

A lot of shared owners don’t see it like that and get caught in a trap

Because they didn’t research before they bought.

its really common to get carried away with the excitement of being able to buy your first home and get some security from renting.

My DM is a bit snobby about the social housing residents on her new build estate. (This doesn't reflect my views at all, as I used to own a shared ownership new build flat).

She loves her new house but nearly bought one down the road in the estate except she decided that it was too overlooked by the shared ownership apartments (which are very nice, but for whatever reason, my mum decided it was going to be too noisy or something 🤔😐😵‍💫).

I'm sure it's a bit of a thing with certainly some new build owners that they dont like to mix with certain "types" of people... (But this isn't my own perspective or personal opinion, just my observation).😎