Council homes: which one is it; envy or stigma?

[EddyF]

Or both? When I read threads on here or even in general, anyone posting about waiting for a council home, or about their council home, the replies tend to be "be grateful, you've got a 'free' flat" blah blah blah. But on the another hand, there's is always a whiff of 'stigma' attached to them and not being the first choice for most people. But if the latter is the case, why does it cause outrage/sneers that people should be grateful for paying lower rent etc?

I know someone is a bit of a snob (I like them though😄) who lives in a London typical 70s brick solid small flat with mixture of houses and other flats in the area. Her rent is so reasonable. She complains a LOT about the lack of attractiveness of her building. Inside her flat is GORGEOUS to most people's standards. Brilliantly decorated, high end stuff, kitchen and bathroom she ripped out herself years ago with no permission from the council (as most of her neighbours). Honestly it's beautiful inside. The block is outdated. This person I know can afford to move out. She complains the council encourage their buildings to be attached to 'roughness' hence why council properties have a stigma, and of she had 'proper' money, she would be put like a shot. She stays bcos she knows she has a good deal. Her 19 yr daughter is at uni, had her at 17, brought up her child with no trouble in the same property/area. It's sad she cannot see the beauty in her environment (a struggling London borough) but could be worse. All of London has pockets of deprivation. Her flat inside is so nice I just can't see the issue!

How can it be in 2019 that there is a stigma to housing when everyone knows the difficulties of getting up on the ladder?

I feel like I may have gone of tangent here😅.

I don’t know where other people live but there is very little council stock left in the south east and it is all Housing Association. Which is not the same. You pay 80% market rate and don’t get the 4 weeks rent free you do in the council housing. I had to pass an affordability check and the people in the house before me had their tenancy ended after 5 years as they could no longer afford the rent. It was neglected (dirty and bad decor) and entirely empty except for basic bathroom and kitchen fittings. No carpet

It’s just a lot better than being at the mercy of an inexperienced landlord who has no idea what they are doing, and can’t afford any repairs. When you live in HA there are emergency numbers you can call for serious plumbing or electrical issues and they will make sure they check your boiler every year.

I live on a big estate with 25% HA and it’s not a sink estate due to the mix in the community. All of our houses look similar and there isn’t obvious disparity

I grew up on a small council estate in a council house that is now almost (but not completely) entirely privately owned, even the flats. IMO it is a weird strange looking estate with nothing matching, some of the homes are dilapidated and run down, whilst some have had £200k complete makeover with extensions and driveways. You can tell what is council and what isn’t

I don’t really get the problem. There’s no more a stigma or envy than if someone needs a mobility scooter to get around or if they need a blue badge or whatever. Some people just can’t make enough money to survive in the usual way and need some government assistance and that is their business only.

Are you assuming social housing tenants dont their own rent @busybarbara?Because where I live there is little difference in private rent and social rent and lots of people pay their own rent in both private and social housing ,it's swings and roundabouts , in private rented you often get carpets ,white goods etc but little security and you can ,t decorate whereas in social housing there is no flooring,no white goods ,but at least there are secure tenancies,but tbh I could make point until I'm blue in the face and dill people will bang on about London and the South East

Pay their own rent .

The council sold all their stock to a large housing association in my town in the North West @Menora so some estates are ok some not so good ,they are also building some new housing ,there are also some smaller housing association,s and most of their houses are new build and they cost a bit more but not loads more .

If I moved into a 3 bedroom council house here I would pay about £89 a week and have 4 weeks rent free

In a 3 bedroom housing association house it is £209+ a week

I did see one for £180 a week but this was snapped up while the brand new £220pw homes didn’t get any or as many bids depending on location.

This is when I was bidding last year. I bid and won a £220 a week home new build but when I drove out to it I hated the location as it was behind a huge school on a horrible road so turned it down and then got the next one for £209pw which is about 5 years old, transport links are worse but it’s quieter

I live in a rural area that is being expanded very rapidly into the green spaces and villages turning into towns iyswim

In contrast my house is £89;/ week for a two bed, a three bed is about £100/week same housing association ex council stock ,for a three bed from a one of the smaller housing association,s it's about £120/week the houses are mainly,new build and do look a lot nicer

In my area HA and council rents are roughly the same as private rents. In some cases HA and council rents are sightly cheaper but not by more than £50 pcm. Because of cheap housing and unscrupulous LL from out of the area buying up huge swathes of property we have a not unique situation where supply outstrips demand. Many areas in the North East have the same. Southerners go onto RightMove and start rubbing their hands in glee at the thought of buying a three bed semi, with front and back garden for £40k, without realising it's £40k because 1) Redcar is a shithole and 2) No-one in Redcar can afford more than £40k and 3) Every southern LL and their dog own properties along the NE coast and 4) We have plenty of social housing and waiting lists are short. They end up having to rent to the people the council and HA won't accept in most properties.

As an aside I waited all of a fortnight to reach the top of the list for social housing when I applied and had the choice of two suitable properties. I could have turned them both down and waited for more but the first one I saw was ideal (although was and still is in need of much, much work which I am responsible for funding myself).

I am extremely envious of those with secure tenancies and low rents having been in private rentals for most of the last 7 years, during which I have moved 12 times. The difference between council/HA rents and private are absolutely shocking. One friend in the midlands pays £500 a month for her lovely spacious 2 bed HA house on a new build estate which she could decorate however she liked while we paid £1200 for a privately rented poky terrace on a street with a crack den at one end where we weren't allowed to put pictures up. She was in the catchment for good primary and secondary schools too. Another set of friends pay £850 pm for their 2 bed garden flat down the road from us in London zone 3, we pay £1300 for a flat with no garden. We are constantly worried our landlords will want to sell up, put the rent up again or leave us without hot water over the winter as happened one year, and the worry that we will apply for school places only to have to move and lose them. Moving so frequently has cost us an absolute bomb even when doing DIY with a hired van. I'd kill for a council house in all honesty, renting privately is hellish.

When Council housing was first brought in: few people owned property, most lived in rented. This meant that Council estates started being a mixture of (lower) middle and working classes.
However with a huge reduction in council houses due to "right to buy" and steps made to stop Councils building them, increasingly they became less desirable - and also harder to get access.
Those who could bought and moved to other areas. And even more the push was to buy your own home, and get on the housing ladder.
This meant that those in council housing became the poorer, the elderly and troublemakers. Which became a push factor on those who could afford to move out.
And even more as councils were encouraged to sell off the management to housing associations, some housing associations cherry picked the areas with "nicer" tenants.

I've visited Council tenants who say their area used to be "nice" but now it's somewhere problem tenants are "dumped".

I grew up on a Council Estate. My Mum bought her house under the Right to Buy as a single parent. I was allocated a property in the next street in March after my landlord who wanted to sell my rental of 9 years became abusive and threatening. I was lucky to get this house as it is in good condition. The area is OK. There are some feckless people here but there were in the fancy estate I lived in last time. The council own 60% of properties out of 300 here. People do look down their nose at me. But I work and I am studying for a Masters part time. My childcare is astronomical so even though I earn a good wage I struggle. My rent has dropped from £575 and Council Tax of £107 to rent of £380 and Council Tax of £65 I am better off.

And what do.private rents go for near your friend in the Midlands @nocluewhattodo?I think most people realise rents in London are astronomical but London isn't representative of the whole of the Uk.

@ nocluewhattodoo

The thing is that you end up paying someone’s mortgage, maybe even with profit on top of its a business for them and not accidental BTL. When I had a mortgage with my ex before our split we paid about £500pm on it, and if we still lived there would have about £100k equity in it and probably still a similar mortgage payment.

But I am in a house when I pay nearly £900pm to a HA and will never own it. The issue is not that HA rents are low but private is so high!

My HA house to buy now on a 25 year mortgage with a low interest rate would be around £1000pm. So I am renting at the market value of the house in the SE, but to rent the same house privately I just put into Rightmove 3 bed houses in my postcode for under £1,500pm - there isn’t one single house!

of course it's jealousy, the system is an absolute joke.

There are blocks of (very nice looking) flats in central London - let's say half the street is council, the other half private and the properties don't sell for less than a million ££. You cannot distinguish between the 2 from the outside, nothing rough about them.
I know people who have been given a lovely property, entirely redone before they moved in, kitchen included! and they pay, in central London! , a token rent of a couple of £100. Of course no one wants to work full time there...

So yes, I am pretty pissed that I have to commute for hours because i can't afford to live there, but the lazy gits are given everything for free or next to free.

Lazy gits

pudding.

Did you not read any of the posts in the thread from the working poor or are you so entrenched in bigoted views that make you feel superior?

I don't understand.
Those on this thread that say they could privately rent but are in council housing.

How? How do you get a council property if you can afford private?

Council properties aren't for poor people Saturn it's for anyone.

Because contrary to what people believe Saturn anyone can apply for social housing ,now obviously in some LA,s there will be massive waiting lists and no point on going on the list but that's not the same everywhere and again in some parts private rented and social rents are comparable but why an I bothering to explain this as people keep.ignoring it anyway

s ," in private rented you often get carpets ,white goods etc"

Yes and its funny how the ones arguing about fairness dont want to even the score here.

I don't understand. Those on this thread that say they could privately rent but are in council housing. How? How do you get a council property if you can afford private?

Apart from area specific requirements* the only circumstance you need to apply for HA/council housing in my LA is to be able to afford the rent either via your wages or housing benefit taking into consideration the bedroom tax and the local housing benefit rate.

*Some areas are designated families only and in a very select few you need a DBS to apply.

The HA sinks extra funds back into the community via funding towards parklands and funding for large item disposal for everyone, not just tennents. They also have employment fairs, education funds and training opportunities for tenants and people on less than full time NMW. Working is encouraged not looked at as a reason not to rent to someone.

Indeed @HelenaDove The housing association are replacing our kitchen soon as the one we have is falling to bits but it it's not as people on here might envisage all integrated units and cooking islands ,s they are just replacing the cupboards all the white goods are ours .

@x2boys I know the feeling Ive put plenty of examples on these threads that HA rents can be just as expensive as private ones Even more so. Its been covered extensively enough and not just by me.

Yet they keep parroting the same tired old tropes. Its almost as if they want someone to take it out on/blame/feel superior to.

I am in Australia not UK but am surprised people would perceive living in housing commission as an enviable position.

Council rents aren’t cheap - they just haven’t been over inflated like private rents and mortgages. They are priced at a level that is affordable for a family working on lower wages.

I manage my rent without housing benefit but if I was privately renting I’d have no choice but to claim housing help because it would be beyond what I could manage on my low wage as a single person. Lots of private rentals don’t accept people who’d need housing benefit either so there is very much a need for these lower rents for many families.

Council housing is secure too, although. I believe, newer tenancy agreements aren’t all like that now.

I think the mix of views is due to people either thinking (wrongly) they are subsidising others or envy because they are struggling in their expensive and insecure housing. People are subsiding those in private rentals far more in housing benefit costs - which then goes straight into rich landlords pockets.

Prawn the social housing we have wasn't designed for the poorest it was deliberately made so that the GP or headteacher would live alongside disabled or minimum wage earners. Mixing society so we ALL could live in decent, safe, affordable homes without pockets of deprivation.
Then Conservative party convinced everyone we should be home owners.
Now SH is so depleted only the very needy stand a chance, creating the envy.

Very simplistic but you get the gist it isn't emergency housing etc.