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?

I had exactly the same comments from our sales negotiator, the affordable housing was a separate colour on the site plan. So if even the builder is warning people then there must be a reason? We are a very average household, and can’t afford to get this wrong.

The builder isn't warning people - they are providing information. Because people need to know which properties they might have a shot at affording.

Do you seriously believe there is some great societal divide between you, & people who can only stretch to houses costing - what - £50k or £100k less than yours?

That. It's insane that you think they were 'warning you'OP. Those who qualify for affordable housing need to know which homes they can buy. THAT'S the reason those homes are in a different colour.

Jeeze. My eyes just rolled into the back of my head.

In SE some 3 bed affordable properties are £400k+

Single mum to a 6 year old gymnast enthusiastic boy. Works as a biomedical scientist, also owns a fat lazy housecat. lives in affordable housing. Don't think I'd want to live next to you either.

Theres a lot of posters being disingenuous here

There is a reason that developers try really really hard not to have affordable or social housing within their developments, they know a lot of buyers dont like it, they normally try to go through various loop holes to avoid having that on their sites

Secondly , ironically, the majority of people in social housing rentals (whether council or HA) are the ones who are more likely to be settled, well behaved and good neighbours. If they got evicted for anti social behaviour/crime etc, then they make themselves 'intentionally homeless' which means its easier for the council to say they have no duty to rehouse and while they might have some duty for emergency housing, their long term needs are met by the private sector. So you're more likely to find problem families within a private let than withinn a social housing/council let

Lastly, while the OP might not have expressed it in the right way, she is not unusual for wanting to avoid problems in housing. Its the sort of thing that is really difficult to resolve and get help with and can make you mentally and physically ill. There are estates up and down the country with anti social and criminal behaviour associated with social housing so she's not wrong to query that.

Because there is so much nonsense on this thread about affordable housing, which includes social housing:

Developers are required to deliver a certain percentage of their schemes as affordable housing via the Section 106 agreement. The percentage will depend on the overall viability of the site, and will usually be sold to a housing associations or less frequently, to the local authority, for them to manage.

The section 106 agreement will also specify what tenure the homes should be:

• First Homes - first time buyers only, with links to the local area, usually sold at a 30-50% discount to open market value, and the discount has to be preserved when sold on. Buyers still have to get a mortgage, so will be subject to the usual affordability tests and will in many locations still need to have an income of £50k+ if you assume a 10% deposit
• Shared Ownership - Buy e.g. 20% of the property and pay rent on the rest of it. Again, lots of affordability tests. Property is managed by the HA
• Affordable rent - usually 80% of open market rents, so still not hugely affordable for many! Property is managed by HA or LA
• Social rent - about 50% of open market rent. Property is managed by HA or LA. It is highly unlikely that this will be the tenure on your development, as the discount from OMV is so large that developers always argue it makes their scheme unviable - so planning authorities would rather get 20% of the overall numbers as Shared Ownership & Affordable Rent than only having 5% of delivery as Social Rent.

I have always thought that all housing should be mixed and every road should have some social housing. Our road in London did. There were no problems. It's called community.

The LA ghettos have negatively impacted society.

As somebody who works on a building site - building social housing and private housing I can tell you there is a difference. But not on all of them. The last project I was on the social housing occupiers threw stuff out their property at the workers. We got such abuse from them.

I have also lived on a development myself bear social housing and have experienced problems.

Please can try and virtue-signal all they want. But sometimes you do experience issues. But then you can also experience issues with private housing. But yes I would re-consider.

That's my opinion and my experience and you can flame me all you want I couldn't give a shite.

That's social housing though not affordable housing which is very different.

I wouldn’t buy there. We live on a big new development - a new town actually- and I never thought twice about the social housing plots (and I mean social not part buy affordable) and it wouldn’t have put me off at all. As it happens our house is not in one of those areas.

But, I can tell you where exactly one of the main social housing areas is now, because whenever there is trouble in one of the parks/just out and about - it is ALWAYS one of the kids/teenagers from those houses and their payments don’t seem to give a shit. They are also the ones out screaming at their kids in the street (when the kids disobey them). I think the developers should space these properties out, not put them all together so that others are aware of where they are.

In the part of the country we live in though, social housing is incredibly hard to get and is only given to families who are classed homeless and are in emergency bed and breakfast accommodation for months before they get a house - so it is families who don’t work (as the ones who do will rent privately before getting to stage of presenting to council as homeless ) and they are often single parents with multiple children, because they are prioritised - and for whatever reason, the ones in my area do seem to have social problems.

I have spent time in another area of the country where there is lots of social housing available and there are lots of people living in them who work and don’t have issues.

Have no fear OP, poor people are identifiable instantly by their branded sportswear and ankle tags. Or the cans of stella and the huge TV that you paid for that they are carrying into their house.

*parents

Ignore the knee-jerk outrage from some on here. The fact your plot is the only one left in 8 tells you you're absolutely not the only buyer with this concern. If you look at any property "dealbreaker" thread on here, you will find "bad neighbours" top of most lists. I'd look into the actual scheme and unless it's pretty high criteria I'd swerve it.

I lived in social housing as a child, until I was about 7. My dad was training to be barrister (he's now a judge) and my mum was training to be a doctor. All our neighbours were all lovely.

When they qualified we eventually moved final huge posh house... (Beautiful old Victorian detached). One of the new neighbours eventually was sent to jail. A later neighbour was a lottery winner who threw parties till the early hours and screeched up and down the road in his sports cars

@bellac11 Housebuilders don't want affordable housing in a strong market because it reduces the gross development value of their scheme. They don't want to be compelled by planning requirements to sell a property to a housing association at 80% of the value they could achieve if they could sell it to a standard owner occupier.
Conversely, in a falling market, they are very happy to flip more units to affordable, because they'd rather sell it at 80% of OMV today that have it hanging around for 12 months and ending up at a 25% discount, or having to keep the sales office open with associated staff costs for a year longer than they had planned for. It's got very little to do with what their buyers do and don't want to live next to.

Definitely this! I work for the ministry of justice and live in a council house. Not the sort of person you would want to live next to I'm sure

this riff raff is off to cause some noise

The street that I live in was built 2005. 25% of the houses (10) are housing association. You know, teachers, nurses, healthcare assistants, mechanics.

One of my best friends live in affordable housing. She is a senior paediatric intensive care nurse. She saves lives most days when she goes to work at a London leading teaching hospital. Who knows, she might save YOUR child one day. What a horrible attitude to have. Shame on you

Speaking from previous experience I will never live in/near affordable or council housing again. Noisy messy nightmare - new houses and neighnourhood ruined by ASBO slobs. Awful.

Good to know that despite the fact I and many of my friends are well educated with very good jobs that serve our communities (nurses, social care, teachers) and are very pleasant people that because we can only afford affordable housing we’re obviously the scum of the actual earth.

I have lived in a lovely little semi (no affordable housing in sight) and our neighbour’s 20-something child was an on-call solicitor - the sort you call when you’ve been arrested. Thumps and slams and lights clicking on and off all through the night. We took a £10k hit on our house to get away from her.
I now live in an estate which has affordable housing clumps. My neighbours are lovely. Occasionally we smell weed, which I can live with. From the clumps we hear noise pollution regularly - amplified music, kids screaming, shouting, wheels screeching, and motorised scooters visiting at odd hours. One problem family’s 4 kids roam the streets ringing doorbells, swearing, and playing music through portable speakers. The stereotype reigns good and true.
You can never tell what is going to disturb your peace. However (and I am fully expecting to be flamed for this) there are often reasons for a certain profile of family not being high earners - and therefore needing affordable housing. Lack of social awareness, lack of empathy, a feistiness that comes with feeling unjustly downtrodden because life has dealt difficult hands (often very true), lack of parental discipline because ultimately the parents feel that family trumps everything and they’ll need their children to support them (particularly single mums), easy rage that has led to marriage collapse and job loss and which is a trouble-magnet…
Of course, high earners can be pearl-clutching curtain-twitchers with throaty V engines in their sports cars, and a fair few will be psychopaths with the empathy of a scorpion, but they have managed to demonstrate or fake the emotional intelligence and measured calm to climb that earning ladder - and my feeling is that they are therefore a better bet for being more calculatingly considerate neighbours. They also want to protect the value of their property so are less likely to store a mattress in their garden.
This is, I know, the sweeping generalisation of the century, and I have known many decent, thoughtful families from low-income areas. But a disproportionate percentage have been absolute shits.

I haven't read the whole thread.

It could be different where you are looking at. But the "affordable" housing on the new development near us starts around £300,000. Basically it means professional couple first time buyers with a hefty deposit from mum and dad. The people you're scared of because of assumptions and stereotypes probably don't have a hope in hell of affording it.

Haven’t read the whole thread but there are different types of affordable house, all are worthy, none is better than any other. I’ve lived next to horrendous private renters and owners and absolutely lovely people in affordable.

personally I’d be asking the question AIBU buying a new build off plot - my response wto that would be absolutely!!