Surprised with the quality of some council houses

[LydieL]

Hi all, so I recently moved to a town in the north west, very low income area, the town is as you’d expect a sea of terrace houses that open to the street with concrete yards, some of the nicer parts have gardens but for the most part that’s not the case. There are also some newer estates.

Anyway I work for a charity, we support families where a parent or sibling has passed away. As part of my job I’ve seen a lot of council houses, in this area it’s mostly the terraces which are small or post war builds which are bigger but these tend to be “rougher” areas to live.

Lately I’ve been working with a family, mums been offered a council house and today I went with her to just go over a list of what she needs to do to get out of temporary accommodation asap and into it. I’ll be honest I’m a little stunned at the quality, it’s a 3 bed terrace, small front garden, mid size back garden (more than most around here), large kitchen, bay window. Council have fitted a new kitchen and bathroom and re-plastered the whole house.

It’s also in a “nicer” area. For the amount this place would sell for, you could probably buy 2 cheaper 3 bed terraces and considering the shortage of council housing stock I’m surprised that hasn’t happened! She will be paying about a little Over half what it would go for on the rental market.

Now I know this is the exception rather than the norm but AIBU to be surprised councils are holding onto higher value properties like this rather than selling them and either getting 2 houses (so 2 families can be housed) or putting the profit into the local area?

I am aware this is far from the norm but after talking to colleagues the council seems to have several properties in this little area, this mum has also got very lucky with her housing situation as she’s only been in temporary accommodation for a couple of months.

Your house looks lovely, @Imbluedalale !

And great news about your remission, I hope you can really enjoy your new home now.

You just sound jealous. I think it's good that council houses aren't all just lumped together in the worst areas.

Think you could do with some training OP. Not EDI and all that bollocks - read some Marx. You're working with people in poverty. Time to start thinking about material conditions.

That’s good - no other factors?
Them circs wouldn’t have got a look in around here.
But deffo good for you and family

I love in a HA home. 3 bed in coastal Dorset. It is a lovely home. About 18 years old. The development was 3 terraces of 4 houses. Each set of 4 has 1 HA home, 1 shared ownership and 2 privately owned. They didn't decide thr HA ones until the very end so they are all built to the same standards. I pay £615 a month.

Our previous private rentals were in far worse condition with far less options for challenging the landlords. I consider myself very lucky and do believe that secure, affordable housing was what enabled me to turn our lives around and become fully financially independent.

Also, seeing the previous comments. We got priority gold band due to a disabled child as we were in a tiny FFF.

Yes, my DP lives alone so would only be eligible for a one bed place anyway, if he was able to get on the list.
Thankfully, he found a private rental in the end, a 2 bed flat. He WFH so preferred to have a separate room he could shut the door on when he finishes work.

Even though the housing dept at the council said he could not get on the list, they gave him practical advice on how to find a private rental place. He used to go there weekly with a diary of the properties he had applied for.

A previous poster has probably hit the nail on the head as to why this doesn't happen. A CH is never worth market value all the while there is a tenant in it as it can't be sold on the open market, only to that tenant under Right to Buy. This is a considerable discount on market value, and then another chunk of the sale price has to be given to the government.

Therefore any CH would have to be worth around 6 or 7 times the value of the two acceptable houses in order to actually make this possible. You probably aren't going to find that disparity of pricing across one council borough very often

That will be why, not for any of the ideological reasons people are talking about, just because it isn't actually possible. If it were, you can bet councils would be doing it

Have you come across the notion of ‘pepper potting’, op? The idea being that in any area there is a mix of private owners and social tenants, helping to avoid the creation of ghettos, thus helping to prevent antisocial behaviour, and encouraging children of different backgrounds to mix (if only in the local schools), thus encouraging aspiration and hard work in those from poorer backgrounds. It’s been shown to have a positive effect. The creation of poverty-based ghettos on the other hand has been shown to create problems.

Councils can't use money from the sale to buy/build more properties anyway. So they'd just lose a house and nobody would gain, if it was sold.

No, the rules changed. Proceed go to housing now.

However the discounts have been slashed and house prices have skyrocketed so there aren’t many sales. The figures are publicly available if you look for them.

i develop new council homes. We build lovely ones, high standards - net zero carbon with air source heat pumps and pv panels etc. usually bigger than national space standards due to good storage space. Due to building regulations they will all have electric car charging points. We provide affordable, secure, warm well designed homes and that can only be a good thing. Predominately they are family homes because this is where the desperate need is. regardless of what people may think of adults and their life choices, surely they can see that any and every child deserves a home like this? I appreciate it can be difficult when comparisons are made between working/not working and social housing/private renting but I think we should be pushing for everyone to have a decent affordable homes.

councils that still own housing stock have a ring fenced Housing Revenue Account. This is completely separate to the General Fund which covers all other council services. Council tax goes into the general fund. Rents from the housing stock go into the housing revenue account, this money can only be spent on existing stock and building new homes - nothing else. They’ll often be some grant from government which will be ‘taxpayer’ money but the majority is from the rents of existing council tenants. As a pp said there are huge sums of money going into existing housing stock in the sector, both in councils and housing associations to reach epc c and later the aim for fully net zero carbon, but also due to regulatory reform dealing with damp and mould and other improvements. Overtime, existing stock will be vastly improved.

good housing, in comparison to cold, unaffordable, damp, overcrowded housing has wider impacts on physical and mental health, educational outcomes etc that save taxpayers money in the long term. We need more, good affordable housing so more people can benefit. Unfortunately no one likes houses being built near them.

Also I suspect people are also referring to housing associations and other social housing providers when they say council house. And other social housing providers don’t have the same restrictions on sale proceeds that councils do.

its still not worth them selling their high Quality assets for double the amount of crap ones though

Most pig ignorant post I've ever read on here and that's saying something!

They may also be renting it themselves from a private landlord. I’m a landlord & we get approached by councils to supply social housing all the time. It’s bonkers. They’ve sold a lot of their own stock & now renting it back off the private rental market!

Nope. DD1 was in need of safe housing, ideally with on site parking because she was a danger to herself.

I largely agree with you but “adults and their life choices”?! Where are we expecting NMW earners to live in this toxic housing economy? We did need people to do those NMW jobs in retail, healthcare and so on. They’re the backbone of the country. It’s nonsense to pretend that everyone could and should be chartered professionals if they just tried a bit harder.

Many Housing associations are selling high value stock, and also perfectly ordinary stock. They have disposal strategies that consider different factors and every time a property becomes empty they consider whether it should be sold. This can include, for an example, a much needed three bed house which is 25years old.

@Imbluedalale That garden is my dream, a blank canvas with so much potential 😍
What a beautiful home you have, and so well deserved after such a trying time. Wishing you and your family well 💐

She didn't say that. She said for the value of that one house the Council could buy two lesser places which means two families could be housed not one. It makes sense to me as there is a shortage of housing.

I think the poster you are reply to is agreeing with you. The OP of this thread was sneering at the "life choices" of their supposed client.

Apologies bottleblond, I think I worded that badly, I was thinking about previous posters and some opinions that focused on some people being underdeserving of an affordable home, I didn’t think of how it would read from another perspective . I think everyone deserves a good affordable home, it’s fundamental.

My son got a housing association flat last month, when he told me the address I was worried as it's not the best area but my first council house was in one of the worst streets in the town, drug dealers galore. We loved that flat and never got a minutes bother from the neighbours just the police that couldn't read warrants correctly, back to my son, I went to see his flat. It has more storage in it than my 4 bedroom massive sandstone has. He got a brand new kitchen, they left the bathroom as a wet room as he said he didn't want a bath in. Only room we needed carpet for was his bedroom rest of the rooms is laminate. There is a security door at the front and his front door is solid. For a 23 yrs old guy just starting out its fab.

Lots of council houses are fantastic. I work for a local authority and I often have house envy at our rural semi detached homes with huge gardens !

I live in a 2 bedroom council flat, it’s in a ‘nice’ area and the price reflects that as I’m paying over £1k for this council FLAT (no balcony or garden and living room and kitchen is one room). Council homes are barely even reduced price depending where you are in the country - but regardless what they are they are people’s HOMES. My grandad lived in a council house from 20 until the day he died at 80, that was his home. Do you expect people like that to live in a squat for over 60 years.