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?

Well you'll know the answer all too well then won't you 😊

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

The social housing is often smaller or a different plan/layout. New houses will have carpets included as part of the purchase price, but social housing won’t (yes, it’s stupid). The social housing will often have a more basic kitchen and less fittings round the houses, eg no mirrors, no bathroom cabinets.

I dont think that's a drug issue so much as indicative of inequality.

Nope funding for mixed developments is still as I describe

Are you really that dense?

Can’t you understand that for those on low wages or NMW jobs (and we need people to do those jobs - society would be fucked without these people!) cannot get a mortgage so what do you expect them to do?

eta for the trillionth time - houses aren’t given out for free for the majority of people 🤦🏽‍♀️ and it is insulting when I am working my arse off to pay my rent that people think I am less than them

You chose to buy there though. SH tenants often have no choice but to bring their whole life where the council says they should. The HO have far more choice.

Even when it’s segregated it causes issues. We had social housing at the far end of our estate but the local park was opposite our house. The kids from the SH used to come and sit in the park drinking, smoking or inhaling nitrous oxide, swearing and making noise. On weekend mornings I regularly used to go round the park picking up broken glass, beer cans, and nitrous oxide canisters so the little kids in our street could play out.

I’d never live near SH again if I could avoid it, the risk is too high.

It’s definitely area dependent too. There is no council stock here and housing associations do build but not enough to make a dent in the phenomenal numbers on the housing list so you really have to be in need to be allocated a property. Twenty years ago we would allocate up and down the list to find someone suitable for a property, those days were long gone even ten years ago when I left.

The people with the highest needs are often the more vulnerable in society and not people who able to call around estate agents and organise a rental property for themselves when a tenancy ends or lucky enough to have help from family with space to put them up or assist with a deposit. So the poor reputation of social housing tenants just perpetuates itself because the people who are housed are inevitably the people who are already struggling with life and unable to support themselves and they then take their problems to the new property. Being able to fund your own family gives you choices in life, for lots of people it’s not as simple as just moving if they don’t like an area and it only takes one or two bad apples to spoil a development for everyone already living there unfortunately.

I live on a new build estate, one side is large detached properties (no SH) the other side is more mixed with some large detached, some semis and some terraced. Some of the semis and terraced are SH but often their next door neighbour is private rent or mortgaged. I think it's to do with the plot sizes and having similar homes together.

On all the new estate developments I’ve seen, the social housing is all grouped together. Any private housing that is next door or directly opposite is always a little bit cheaper than ones that are on the other side of the development.

I’ve always assumed by grouping the SH together it means the developer has to discount fewer of the private houses.

Some of the comments on here are to be expected but miss the point that if you are spending a huge sum on a new build house it’s impossible to know what your neighbours will be like so you have to take a risk based approach. That means avoiding being next to social housing. It may only slightly increase your chances of having better neighbours but it’s still enough to make a difference on average. Of course you can still end up with great SH neighbours or awful private ownership neighbours but on average you will have a better quality of life if you avoid the SH hence why developers sell the adjoining properties more cheaply.

My inlaws recently moved into a new build - their developers somehow wangled putting the social housing at a different site.

well id like to know - be great to hear your explanation?

This is more common now, because the return on investment is so low that the only way to realise the land price is for the land owner to negotiate this option with the council as part of the sale.

The purchaser buys another piece of land in another location and fulfill their 106 obligations there. I’ve just negotiated one. It’s not ideal though, because mixed development in high value areas are the ideal.

Houses on housing estates are generally cheaper than non estate houses.

The home buyers know the estate will be a mix of social housing and non social housing, unlike the majority of more expensive non estate houses in the area.

In what way? Genuine question. I'm not naive to the fact that drugs are linked to inequality, but there comes a point when it's a choice.

If you have a council flat and access to benefits, you have maybe £500 - £700 a month to live off.

I have a job, after I've paid my mortgage and all bills (admittedly after I've put some aside for pension and paying off car loan and credit card debt) I've got about £500 - £700 left to live off.

I'm comparing me and my DB (who doesn't work and spends his money on drugs as far as I can work out). He lives in a new build flat that will be his for life. I live in a new build flat which will be mine once I've paid the mortgage off.

I wouldn't want to be him because I get a lot of mental stimulation from work, and make better health choices because I have to be well to work to pay the mortgage.

But on the face of it, where's the inequality between us?

Then earn more money so you don’t have to live near us riff raft. Not that easy? That’s what people in SH get told - don’t like it? Earn more to buy your own house. Only not everybody in society can earn all that - there will always be people on lower income (good hardworking people) and why should they be penalised?

Drug use is as common among the middle classes as it is in the lower socioeconomic groups. What isn't as common higher up the scale is an unstable, chaotic lifestyle. So the people in SH and the HO could be using the same drugs from the same dealer, but you'll see the signs of a chaotic lifestyle from only one of those homes.

If the people in SH won the lottery tomorrow and bought somewhere, they'd still have similar issues. You haven't changed anything.

The fact your drug taking HO neighbours are quiet is due to them being generally more privileged. Not teetotal.

I lived on a new build estate in social housing for 6 years. The house was brand new. It was a small estate but about 3 out of the 7 streets had a lot of social housing together and private houses on either end. The social houses were smaller. I had a tiny 2 bedroom mid terrace. It was literally one room downstairs. £1k a month rent btw, but that's Oxfordshire for you.

I don't want to complain as I was very grateful for the house as a single mum, but I didn't enjoy living there. Some really horrible things happened on my street. I won't go into details but a lot of mental health dramas, drugs, ambulances and police. One particular event that happened outside my house will stay with me for the rest of my life. I was relieved (and lucky) to meet a lovely man and we now have a house together elsewhere but the experience has put me off new build estates.

We actually bought on a new estate. The mortgaged /owned ones are all 3 or 4 bedroom, the affordable/ rented homes are all 2 bedroom.
The "affordable" (i say this as they are still massively expensive!) are sort of lumped together as are semi detached in a row and the others are mostly detached. I thought it was just to be prqctical and to keep costs down?

I know some people might feel a bit snotty about things?
Ive lived in various places and sometimes the horrible cliches are true..and sometimes they arent!.
i was classed as living in social housing after leaving a dv marriage with no money at all and i absolutely didnt want to stand out as doffernt to anyone else on the estate. There had been a really bad run of people living in the house short term so I was definitely judged while there and noone would talk to us.

I worked full time and you'd never have known I was there! My garden was tidy and we just did our own thing, like most people do. My next door neighbours on the other hand did happen to deal drugs from the house, bins stank and over flowed and there was an old rusty motorbike sort of living in the lawn/ weeds for the year i lived there. A sofa that was used for the summer ended up being left out over winter and sort of fell apart...it all looked really awful and no one seemed to care! Im pretty sure they privately rented?

However, life changed and i now have a mortgage... and the house we just bought is next door to a row of affordable homes- divided by fences and a drive (just like the other side of the house is, and that's also a 4 bed. Its not put me off in any way and I dont see a divide at all...just people getting on with their lives.
I dont mind who I live by as long as i don't have to put up with loud shouting/ arguements, cars revving at all hours and i'm sure most people are the same x

On my estate the shared ownership/housing association rented, don't have garages, ensuite bathrooms and have one allocated parking space, but they do have heat recovery units. Otherwise they are identical from the outside. I am not aware of any anti-social behaviour, other than a couple of the private lets have cars with noisy exhausts.

Eldest DD lives in a row of social housing and it's all immaculately kept, she gets an inspection every 6 months and a call in between from her housing officer. They get regular maintenance and whilst the house is too small for them all now, the garden is huge and it opens onto a huge playing field so she's reluctant to move.

Youngest DD was in the process of buying on a new build estate in the same location. Mixed new estate of private, part rent/part buy and social housing. The social housing is already horribly apparent, washing machines/electrical appliances and rubbish dumped outside front doors, antisocial behaviour... they went for a site visit on a saturday afternoon, saw their opposite neighbour and withdrew their offer on the Monday. The private housing is already being resold at as much as £50k less than the owners paid for it. It rarely works in rural areas.

It's not "given" it's rented.

I live on a street in a pleasant part of central London which is a mix of very rich homeowners, a few housing association tenants and a few private tenants paying very high rents. Nobody can tell who the social tenants are, everyone keeps their homes in equally good nick, and during the summer when people mix outdoors, nobody asks. The occasional ASB - all night house parties, loud social gatherings in the communal garden - has been down to a tiny minority of the homeowners, both middle aged men with extraordinarily bad manners. Tenure doesn't define people.

I live in a city in the south east and while in much lower numbers, there are houses on new build estates that are definitely social housing. There are plenty of flats too but 3 bedroom flats don't seem to be a thing here in the design. Flats are 1 or 2 bedroom and then it's houses for 3 or 4 bedrooms.

I haven't read all the comments yet, it's probably been mentioned but it's hard to make people happy when it comes to social housing. If they build specific estates or areas then people complain about old fashioned council estates and the perceived negative impact on the area, or else when there are houses sprinkled amongst owned houses, people moan how unfair it is that families on benefits can get lovely new builds.

There are 3 new build housing estates near me. I know 3 people who moved off the new build, because of anti social behaviour from the council tenants. I would never ever buy a house on a new build.