I don’t want to buy a house directly opposite affordable housing

[SpainToday]

I have name changed for this because I expect to get annihilated.

DH and I are considering reserving a plot on a new development. I think all developments now need to have a certain amount of affordable housing. Our first choice of house would be directly opposite three affordable plots and this is a real sticking point. DH is also wary. There were originally 8 plots with our preferred design of house, they have all sold except this one and I suspect that’s the reason.

Of course we could always go with our Plan B type of house round the corner, but that seems such a shame. When we bought our current home, 12 years ago. One of the mortgage questions was proximity to any affordable housing, so its clearly an issue.

Am I worrying unnecessarily?

Definitely don't, they use their benefits to buy alcohol and drugs and have loud parties every single night, even school nights. Plus, the kids are feral.

So, you wouldn't want to live opposite a young couple who have been living in their first home for five years, both working full time, married for eighteen months with a baby. They have been together since they were fourteen. Really? Oh and they have a mortgage too. Does that make difference to you? This is affordable housing and they had to have links to the village be considered, it's midway between both sets of their parents.

If you go to the local authority website, there will be a document on what it means for the area. It does indeed mean different things in different areas, but each Council has to define what it means for them. It will probably be in buried in their planning - Local Plan section.

In our area, 'affordable housing' on new build estates are often made with different, (cheaper) materials so the developer still makes their margin. Sometimes they come without parking allocated parking, so this might be something to ask about. New build estates round here rarely have enough parking and if this is important to you its worth asking. They may also have different maintenance contracts, so communal areas like grass verges / flowerbeds may not be as well maintained. The developer / sales team may not know as they tend to sell them in bulk to housing associations.

It's not about who may or may not live there, people are people, but there ARE differences in the properties.

It’s so not about the several genuinely lovely, thoughtful, quiet families. It’s about the one problem, loud, easily-enraged, unstable family. And, although these can pop up anywhere, they are disproportionately represented in low-income areas.

I live in an area with lots of newbuild estates and most have affordable housing. In general the affordable are less well maintained - messier gardens, doors needing painting etc. Parking also tends to be an issue as they don’t have much allocated per house.
I’d look very carefully.
The affordable bungalows near us are nicely maintained and one little car each so no parking issues.

Don't do it! Your affordable housing neighbours will know you were too poor to buy a property with a better view. They'll be sitting, laughing at you from their sofas on the front lawn.

I had a shared-ownership flat for a few years until recently on a mixed-tenure estate in London.

The estate was made of a tower with luxury flats sold on the open market, a couple of buildings with shared-ownership flats, affordable housing aimed at key workers, and one building that was used to provide social housing to tenants found by a housing association that managed the estate.

I must say that the shared-ownership buildings were the ones that were always tidy and quiet and housed really nice neighbours. ''Affordable'' housing like this in London is actually still quite expensive as you pay a hefty service charge, ground rent and rent to a housing association on the share you don't owe so the people who buy these properties are perfectly decent people with normal jobs.

The problems we had were always with with the people living in the luxury flats or the social housing tenants.

Many of the luxury flats ended up as buy to let for investors and we had tenants smoking cannabis in there and a prostitute using her flat to see clients...

All the noise nuisance we ever had always came from the social housing tenants (loud music for example).

So my point is if the affordable housing on the estate you are looking at is shared-ownership or Right To Buy, you are likely to get couples, individuals or families who just happen to be first time buyers that can benefit from government schemes or people who are teachers, nurses and so on and have slightly lower income. There really is no issue with that in my experience.

If I am completely honest I would not buy again on an estate that has housing reserved for social tenants though (people who are council/housing association tenants), because although again most of them might make great neighbours, the experience I had was there is also a strong possibility of having ''problem'' families or individuals being housed and then the housing association does very little to address anti-social behaviour. We also had a council estate nearby and again although most tenants were great, we had a couple of dodgy ones that ruined it for everyone else: loud music and gang activities.

I know it is not fair to think of social housing tenants in this way but when you have lived through some of these issues it makes you rather wary so I know the OP is being criticised but frankly I don't blame her for being cautious and investigating things further.

Affordable housing means one of two things , shared ownership and social rented .
If it is social rented you are right to be cautious about investing your money in a property opposite.

I live in social housing on a new build estate, I look after my home and garden and behave respectfully towards my neighbours , however the same cannot be said for my neighbours. Screaming at kids , swearing, smell of weed, litter everywhere, front gardens a tip, i could go on....

Unfortunately many people who live in social housing have zero respect for themselves , their neighbours and their property and there coming from someone who lives in social housing ! When I do buy a property in the next few years I will be very cautious about buying close to social housing .

This is exactly my experience of social housing tenants ... first hand

I know it is New Year's Eve but the kids down the road from the social (mixed with affordable housing) are screaming the street down. Really a mix of very young kids, teenagers and adults. I wish I could record it and post it. Since the end of the road was opened in 2021 and the social housing occupiers moved in, it has been an absolute nightmare.

Summertime is hell; screeching, screaming, swearing in the middle of the night, kids digging up flowers and plants just out of boredom. There's a little girl about 5 up all hours just screaming until as late as 11pm. One neighbor that moved there a year earlier sold up and left.

I had to call the police one night last summer at 1:30am as there was a party that turned into a brawl, spilled onto the road and went on for almost an hour. I was worried that cars were going to be smashed in the process.

A lot of my neighbours have put up security cameras around their house and this turned out to be a good thing as one of the neighbours had a delivery left on her doorstep (normal to do before) and a group of these kids in broad daylight took the delivery, opened the wines, smashed bottles, drank some, opened the clothes, etc. Luckily they were caught on camera and neighbour went to their house to speak to their parents.
They were made to apologise but it meant nothing.
There is a detached house overlooking a green and the poor owners fence is scaled, kids jump into their house and one of their social housing neighbours had a party for their Brice until 4am one morning. It is truly beyond horrible, I cannot put it into words.

The only good thing is we are about 4 doors from the affordable housing and there's probably 10 or 15 affordable between us and the council houses and I cannot imagine how the people in the affordable houses cope with the noise. The road is curved and sort of ends up behind my opposite neighbours back garden, so they get all the party noise etc. Nobody goes to the end of the road anymore as that is where the social houses are located.
We have undeveloped land behind us that is meant for 2 detached houses but pp has been declined as it will overlook some bungalows. I honestly cannot express in words how bad it is so I would say don't buy it EVEN if you get a substantial discount. Walk away @SpainToday.
Oh btw this is in Ireland.

Actually in my estate the council houses have nicer lawns and front gardens partly because the council did it up, including putting up the side gates. I think that was what made people notice as the side gates for the affordable and social housing were all put up whilst those of us that moved in a few years before had to pay for our own gates.

You are the ignorant one, read my post correctly, I specifically have talked about social housing not affordable housing, nowhere in my post have I mentioned affordable housing, brush up on your comprehension skills.

Actually I have taken your advice @clairelouwho and here is what affordable housing encompasses, this is directly from the the Government website

Affordable housing, which can be for either rent or sale, is for those whose needs are not met by the market. It includes different tenures, including social rent, affordable rent and shared ownership, among others. It can be a new-build property or a private sector property that has been purchased for use as an affordable home.

AVOID!!!

A friend has a plot like this and has to put up with endless noise, drinking, screaming, violence, police visits etc.

Mostly they'll be fine, but perhaps 1 in 10 won't be and you'll live in misery. A huge gamble to take.

Never had any issues on my council estate home. When I was the scumbag in the council house. Since we've now purchased our own home, no end of trouble with the twats that have also... Purchased their own homes..

i haven’t read all the threads

i thought social housing was properties given to people on the local authority list either as a “council property” or “housing association”, and property can’t be rented on the open market

I thought affordable housing is “part buy - part rent” and had to be lived in by the people that bought the property, there are flats like that not far from me, and the incoming occupants have to earn over £70,000 to qualify, and property can’t be rented on the open market

Then you have 100% privately owned property that their are no rules or regs on, so a beautiful executive 4bed/4bath property could end up as a HMO, or a brothel, or guest house or a family home.

I know someone in a part buy part rent, he loves it, it’s brand new, he is in his 40s and divorced, but when you listen to the outgoings, it’s expensive, he could have bought a small flat round the corner on a 100percent mortgage, but it was not brand new and shiny and probably wouldn’t be as successful with the ladies

Why would they be concerned about living next to people who care about their community and hope to live peaceful lives?

Because they are snobs maybe? The OP seems to only "care about her community" as long as they are people exactly like her - which the people in the affordable housing might well be, but she is pre-judging them as otherwise. Btw, I RENT my flat so I'm sure OP wouldn't wish to live within 10 miles of me, although strangely enough all my neighbours seem to like me.

Entirely wrong. It is cheaper because the rent or price that can be charged by the local authority or housing association is legally capped as a percentage of what it would obtain on the open market. It doesn't matter if you have the family from hell living there, or angelic do-gooders, it is a highly regulated specific set of tenures where the values are determined entirely by the housing policy of government.

I can assure you it's 100% true. What's your point – that because you are a social housing tenant and don't cause problems, none of them do? "How ignorant" as you put it.

You can look up the planning permission for the development on the Local Authority's website (Planning and Development) and this will specify how many affordable units are to be included and where, and what type of affordable units they are (social housing, first time buyers, key workers, part buy, etc).

Affordable housing is not social or council housing, it's just smaller homes that people on lower incomes can buy. The homes are bought by people earning maybe lower than you and your partner, but they are just NORMAL PEOPLE. As are those in social housing, by the way, but they are renting their houses. All housing estates are required to have a mix, you are lucky to have the choice of whether to buy a house or not.

Affordable housing for our local estate = social housing majorities through either affordable social houses, social rent or shared ownership. To qualify you have to have low income or already claim social benefits. So yes, I would avoid living in those neighbourhood , no way would buy into the plot opposite if having a choice. @SpainToday you are lucky to have a choice. Avoid!

Your neighbours next door who buy a house could rent it out to anyone privately who is not a good tenant. I am in affordable housing and house proud and work full time

Yes! And they all use their benefits to buy flat screen TVs even though that’s the only kind you can get now.

Oh my God! You might end up living opposite one of those awful nurses! <<clutches pearls in shock>>