New build social housing

[mrsclaus1984]

Our house is currently on the market, and DH wants to arrange to view a house for sale on a new build estate. It’s around a year old, not totally brand new.

The house itself really is beautiful, but I’m reluctant because the adjacent road is full of social housing.

I have said to DH that I feel we should at least have a drive around the estate at a couple of different times of the day/evening to get a feel for the place generally, as well as the social housing roads, before arranging to view and potentially falling in love with the house without seeing the bigger picture.

I’m sure that there are many people in social housing who are great neighbours, but let’s face it these properties do come with problems at times and I would absolutely hate to live close to any issues.

has anyone else bought a home on a new estate and not had any problems with the social housing?

I would suggest that it’s a good idea to have a look around any area (both during the day and night) if you are thinking of buying there. Imagine you found out after buying that your homes on a night time route for long distance lorry drivers…

The social housing could be a lovely family vibe estate or the equivalent of shameless. But yeah, having grown up on an estate, I’d definitely want to check it out before buying a house opposite.

I wouldnt give it a second thought. In fact our house is adjacent to a couple of social houses. The occupants are a mother and her two teenage children and another couple who seem to love cats. Both houses are well kept and their occupants are no different to any of the other houses. In fact they are better neighbours than some of the houses costing double theirs.

Just because people have money doesnt mean they cant be arseholes. I would look at the house and its surroundings. If you want to pay particular attention to the social houses then fair enough see if they are well looked after. But 99% of new build estates now include social housing so i would expect to have this issue everywhere tbh

All new builds will include a ratio of social and affordable housing. You may not even know which plots. You could also have private landlords letting to tenants who may or may not be on benefits. Not all social tenants behave badly and not all lowlifes are living in social housing! Asb is a risk wherever.

YANBU to be concerned about the proximity of social housing, as you say not all people in social housing are antisocial but the risk increases.

I wouldn't worry about the social housing. We've lived near 8 privately rented flats for 30 years and had a variety of issues as well as lovely residents. It can happen anywhere.

But I agree with driving the area at night, weekends and different times of the day. Just to scout out what you feel about it generally. And to look at the parking situation! That's another issue that sometimes shows itself only at weekends and after 6 at night.

Also you can check crime statistics on the Internet for any area. Always worth doing.

omg, do double check, what if you ended up living near me.

I'm a social housing tenant, and a new estate has been built at the end of our street. They have to drive down our road to get to it. In winter, all is fine. But in summer we do have the stereotypical social housing tenants who come out in force. Loud music, large social gatherings which aren't restricted to their back gardens. I work from home and the noise during the summer is horrendous...but I'm grateful to have my house and each to their own so I don't complain.

The new houses range from £200k to £350k. Of the 24 houses built, 4 have been sold to the housing association. So even on new estate itself, there will be social housing tenants. Plus, you could get landlords who have bought some of the houses specifically just to rent out. My view on it is I wouldn't pay £200k to overlook social housing. But, as PPs have pointed out; you could end up with either terrible neighbours or private tenants. It's the luck of the draw nowadays.

No matter where you are buying you need to check out the neighbourhood and next door neighbours before you move in. It will take a lot of time but you are spending a lot of money.

I live in a new build social housing. There are 8 other social tenants in the row.
The rest are privately owned.
The owners are the ones who cause all the noise in my experience of living here.
They seem to think they are more entitled to have lots of loud parties and park like idiots because they are owners

We brought a house 8 months ago that has social housing to the rear, and in my experince they are louder than any of my other neighbours around.

Winter not so much, but summer all the kids from the street congregate in the garden behind mine because they have a trampoline. All i hear throughout the day is screaming, crying, shouting - from both kids and parents.

Deffo do a drive round and take a look, depending how far away you are you may not have the issues i have.

We bought a new build in a cul de sac of about 20 houses. A developer bought 12 of them and let them back to the Council for short term emergency housing stock.

Most of the occupants were fine. The ones who weren't fine weren't just a wee bit annoying, they were full on neighbours from hell. Noisy parties, moonlight flits leaving the property trashed, moving a "lodger" into the garage, feral children. The final straw was bringing my toddler home from nursery to find a full scale drugs raid going on across the road. And Council not interested as they couldn't prove which of the tenants the large quantity of heroin belonged to.

We couldn't get out quick enough. The problem is that things can change very quickly and if you get even a couple of really awful households on the road it makes living there a nightmare. The Council/housing association don't care. If people are regularly being moved on, you could see the street totally change in just a few months.

I would never again live somewhere with a high percentage of social housing.

I live in social housing built 15 years ago. I am very boring and don't have parties. One of ny neighbours was making shit loads of noise cutting his hedge today though while I was wfh. 😆

I recognise your username from another thread OP. You’ve got it in for social housing tenants. Some of your comments were not only wide of the mark but spiteful. Don’t buy the house. I’m sure they won’t want you there

I don't think you should live there if you're going to be so prejudiced and judgemental of your neighbours. 🙄

Does it? What evidence is there of that claim? There are plenty of areas of private housing that have huge problems and antisocial behaviour. Wouldn't it be more prudent to suggest that people might check out ANY area they intend to move to. I have seen some wonderfully antisocial middle class people.

If there is one it might be worth looking at the estate Facebook group to get a vibe for the whole estate - you might be worrying about the wrong houses.

We live on a new build estate and there’s one row of social housing within the estate (I think there has to be now on all new build sites?), if the site hadn’t told us in advance which row it is then we’d probably never have noticed. There has been some issues on the estate since we moved in but not all specific to social housing. I’d definitely go and have a walk/drive round at a few different times of day/night on a few different days a week to get a feel for it but I’d advise that regardless with any new house purchase

We have 80 behind us
The neighbours decided to move because the house behind them attached a dart board to the shed in their garden....more than once a dart came sailing over the fence .
We've been ok though...well apart from the teenage boys from behind sitting on the roof of our shed and throwing rubbish in our garden,and once a half full coke bottle hit our patio doors ....but I just took it back round and they apologized

Anti social tenants can be evicted; living next door to anti social owners can sometimes be worse.

My parents live in a beautiful £5m house on a tree lined street of similarly beautiful houses and yet a family moved in who behaved appallingly.

Wealth doesn't bring class unfortunately. You can have vile neighbours in any street .

I'd never buy on a new build estate. Far too great a risk as to who are going to be your neighbours, whether private nor social. A huge number of people moving in within a few months of eachother doesn't give you the opportunity to see the real picture as to what the neighbourhood will be like.

I've always bought older properties on long established estates/localities. When most people are settled and have been there years, you can see what the area is like. You can see how many transit vans and breakdown vans are parked outside, you can see how many children (and ages etc) are playing in the street or playgrounds or just hanging around the bus stops and corner shops, you can see whether there's anti social behaviour or not, etc. None of that is dictated as to whether the people living there are social tenants or private or homeowners - all types of occupants can be disruptive/criminals.