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?

Well could all you lovely home owners pls tell your children that when they're off at uni renting a student house or renting in a shared house as a young professional, that they have neighbours. Who really don't want to hear their parties! Thank you. Because that's the only people I've ever had problems with.

Hey OP, no need to worry about the risks of living near social housing because apparently home owners kids are going to be a nuisance at university.

I think you've got the right approach. In all sincerity. I live on a mixed road, it's lovely and zero issues. My parents live on a very expensive road and the neighbours are hideous. Constant squabbles over who owns the public road, obscene extensions, just generally entitled and very unpleasant. My road everyone very much keeps themselves to themselves. I couldn't name any of my neighbours.

You definitely need to do some digging, and search on social media but don't make assumptions either way

To be fair, my parents worse neighbour is a 40YO woman with significant mental health difficulties and a drink problem. Her dad has a lot of money and his solution was to buy her a house, park her in it and leave her to it. Desperately sad but on one police visit they said it is actually quite common once you hit the really wealthy circles

I think it's best checking for all types of neighbours.. as I was once the only social housing in a nice road of private, I can tell you the parties, weed smoking, and sitting in the garden at all hours, was from you guessed it

I lived in private rentals for a decade and every neighbour was horrible. The last private rent I lived in was next door to a privately owned house and the neighbours were the worst of all and the police were out constantly. They couldn't be evicted because they owned.

I now live in one of the new build social housing and the neighbours are drug dealers, pedos and benefit scroungers with huge flat screen tvs.

That last paragraph was a lie.

Point is, your post is rather offensive. My neighbours are lovely. Our whole street is full of lovely people.

Owning a home doesn't make you a better person and you shouldn't get your views from the Daily Mail and programs like Benefits Street.

My daughter lives social housing. Her owner neighbour is a class A twat. Parties, barking dogs, teenage gatherings.

My friend is desperate to sell up and move, due to antisocial behaviour, think carefully OP.

Somewhere upthread a poster assumed OP is middle class. I disagree. The middle classes generally couldn’t give a toss about who lives where. I’d say because of her attitude the OP is from council stock who found a bank to lend her some money for a house and now she thinks she’s “arrived”

I live on an estate with NO social housing.
Last month next door but one had a drug raid.
Their son was arrested.

Does that experience invalidate all the problems that people living next to social housing have reported?

Just as another consideration, in our LA over the past 2 years the social housing situation has become so dire that you only stand a chance of being housed at all if you have a medical need, are a victim fleeing DV or a serious, legitimate emergency. If there is any hint of you causing your situation yourself through behaviour/rent/any other then you aren't eligible and told to find a private rental. If you are evicted due to the landlord selling up etc they will provide you a deposit and rent guarantee and tell you to get private rental.

My point is that its so difficult to get housed that problem families just aren't being housed in social housing anymore. I'd be a lot more concerned about private rentals in cheaper areas of wherever you live.

We advertised a flat in London last year. We received 30+ applications in 6 hours and pulled the advert. We were able to choose our tenants and there's no way we'd have rented to anybody with a hint of problems.

The current housing shortages mean that landlords don't need to take on risky tenants.

I think the only place problem families are going to be housed, for the foreseeable future, is in social housing.

Do people really still use the word "chav"?

Given a house for free? You are aware that we social housing tenants have to pay rent?

No, but it does provide balance. The vast majority of people living in social housing are ordinary, decent people living their ordinary lives.

I live on a fairly large post-war council estate, though at least half, if not 3/4, of the houses are now either private rented or owner-occupied. The only way you can tell the difference is that the SH houses have new cladding, windows, roofs and a specific canopy over the front door.

That’s interesting and shows the difference between areas. Here, the houses that are owned are the ones with new windows, roofs, money spent on them, tradesmen going in to do new kitchens/ bathrooms etc. The ones that are still social housing get repair jobs, not replacements.

That definitely isn't the case here. There are several, large, private landlords here who will take anyone backed by the LA deposit and rent scheme. Then they don't give a damn. By contrast, the social housing providers are notoriously picky, if you can even get on the list.

Yeah, I live in an apartment complex and the intercom system has been broken for nearly a year. We're lucky if we even get repairs from the housing association let alone new stuff 😂

Anyone can be a complete twat. When we bought our new build, the sales lady was obliged to point out where the social housing would be (it made me feel quite uncomfortable that she had to do it tbh) Never had any issues tbh although we live quite far away. Anyway, we previously lived in a semi that we owned and out attached neighbour owned. They were the biggest chavs ever. Nasty and had no respect for anyone. They were convinced that when their house got egged it was ‘because they were black’. I was convinced it was because they were just arseholes and someone had finally had enough of them 🤷‍♀️

"experience shows the average social housing tenant is a less desirable neighbour than the average private owner"

What utter garbage.

Social housing lowers prices for nearby privately owned homes. There is a reason for that. People can make up reasons all they like but it’s a fact that if that social housing wasn’t there, those houses would cost more.

If you want to ignore that fact, do it. But accept that it’s not the best financial decision.

‘Utter garbage’ reflected in house prices, you mean. You pretending something doesn’t make it real. Two identical houses in an identical area, the one near social housing will always cost less than that one near privately owned homes.

Anyone can get run over by the bus. But if have a propensity to step into the road without looking, you’re more likely to get run over than if you are careful.

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

i haven’t but I do live in a rent to buy housing association flat. I was considering buying on shared ownership but decided to rent first as it’s reduced rent and they’re still responsible for repairs etc it seems a good deal. I hope to buy this year or next year.

My neighbours are all fine! Seems to be mainly couples and singles from 25-50. But I hear there are some families too. I just haven’t seen them lol. It is super quiet here and residents seem largely respectful.

The only issue I had was dealt with swiftly - a neighbour letting her off-leash dog jump on people. And I heard from someone else there was an issue with a dog (a different one) peeing in the communal area once but that was caught on cctv and the owner was spoken to plus all dog owners were read the riot act.

That said, to qualify to live in my building you had to be earning a minimum amount and pass a credit check. I think it automatically excluded many if not all who are living completely off benefits. So most if not all of the residents are working full time.

I previously lived in a very large block of flats that were all privately rented or owned and there was rubbish left around on stairwells, dog poo on the rooftop garden and the smell of weed everywhere. So yeah it just depends I guess.

It might be good to speak to local people and/or spend a week nearby in an Airbnb or post on a local forum.