Would you live in a housing estate made only for middle class people?

[Melvinaa]

/afforded only by those with professional salaries?

I’ve always lived in areas where poor and rich live cheek by jowl. But I’m considering move to a housing estate which is designed/afforded only by professional people. So the overall demographics are going to be very middle class because rents range from £2000-£5000

What if one of the houses gets changed into a hmo? You can't control who lives on your street.

It could be in the contract- no HMOs, no sky dishes, no hot tubs.

At first I'd say no, but don't we all subconsciously weed out areas or streets we don't want to live on? Even as I mooch on Rightmove I exclude certain things because I don't like them.

Doesn't that naturally happen with housing though?
We live on a nice cul-de-sac of 4 bed detached homes. Only people with decent salaries or a big chunk of equity can afford them, but we've not purposefully chosen to only live around a certain type of person.

This example is renting so you won't suddenly get an HMO.

In answer to the original question I was going to say yes, I wouldn't mind living there. (Very handy having all those doctors if you get unwell).

However this made me think of my mum who moved from a semi in a very nice street to a big detached on a very posh street, and the new neighbours just aren't as friendly.

She was proper friends with a couple of her old neighbours and they still meet up. They are neighbourly in her new street - putting out bins if you're away/taking in parcels, but that is it.

And then I thought about what my policeman brother said about regular visits to some of the very fancy houses on his patch for domestic violence. And the posh kids do drugs too.

So I don't think that the social engineering would necessarily make it a nicer place to live than your normal middle class area.

I wouldn't.

But purely because I live in a new build mixed estate (although been here 17 years now!) and when we all first lived in the only trouble came from the MC families who owned the bigger properties.

We sorted it by having street watch.

And it did take the community pulling together to get everyone to deal with the real issue and culprits rather than blaming the HA l/Social housing residents. (Who it wasn't as people were surprised to find I was one!)

I live on a new build where I feel this is what my neighbours think ours is. The developers legally had to offer affordable housing at 25% of the estate all but 2 of has been covered by help to buy. The outrage that people will live on our estate in rents through the council.

I know from conversations on the estate I’m one of the higher earners due to my job and investments I do. You’d never know this with how my neighbours act Ocado orders weekly, cars and all sorts financed up to their eyeballs (they also tell the best finance deals). They also look down on me for being single as they see the estate as being families, future families. I just keep myself out of it and reads the Facebook group when I’m bored as it’s hilarious

The houses are nice, the estate is quiet. If you keep yourself above all the basic drama (current argument on Facebook that someone put lavender plants in the front garden and it now doesn’t match the estate). Then you’ll be fine

No, just as I would not be in favour of any form of social segregation. Honestly OP, can you not see how shocking this is?

Imagine if you had to be white to live there, or straight? We would all (I hope) be rightfully furious.

Yet because the prejudice here is against the working classes, we are expected to think it's ok?

It's chilling, I think. But I do feel class prejudice is rife and often unacknowledged.

Well it wouldn’t put me off but I also wouldn’t assume everyone is going to be lovely/no noise just because they can afford the rent.

a friend of mine lives on a super posh gated community, most People there own but some rent. The whole estate is run by a very strict on site company. So 24 hr security, gardeners, etc. she has to pay monthly fees for those services as well as a monthly mooring fee even though she doesn’t have a boat because her property is waterside and has a jetty.

The noisiest houses are the biggest ones, “Knob row” as she calls them. 😁. Always blasting music out. The security do go and tell them off though. Then there’s a whole host of rules, you are not allowed to hang washing outside ever, your balcony can only be painted a specific shade of Cuprinol. It’s like another world.

Oh okay well I think this will be populated mainly by young (under 30) banking/finance types and foreign workers, probably also finance. I don’t know what sort of vibe you are after but I don’t think it will be a middle class family community feel as most of them will probably be at work all day and it might feel a bit impersonal. It’s still the case even in London that most people who aren’t just living here temporarily want to buy a place of their own and aren’t going to be attracted to this sort of thing.

Where is this can you link? As that’s very odd indeed, to the extent I’d think uou were either mistaken or making it up. Where does renting checks be based on actual job rather than the normal checks like simply earnings and longevity in role, stability?

I live in a road that by default is becoming like this. We have a retired blue collar couple almost 80 who bought about 50 years ago. If you wanted to live on this road now you would need a really decent income obviously many trades can out earn other occupations but of the people I know that are neighbours they are all in professional jobs. We bought 25 years ago as a junior academic and librarian. The salaries of those two posts just wouldn’t be able to afford it now. House next door sold for just over 400% more than we paid for ours a year ago and the new owners are the CEO of a company and an engineer. Two of the households are not white including my own.

Very happy being middle class in my middle class area, thank you!

It's all very well doing background checks or even interviewing potential tenants, but people will be on their best behaviour in interviews, and morals don't show up in background checks.

"because rents range from £2000-£5000"

It's not a middle class estate surely if it includes rentals ? Renting is for poor people, though some renters are less poor than others and can afford better estates ;)

There would be no point in working hard and bettering yourself if you end up living in an episode of Shameless. Why bother spending years at uni or diligently learning a trade, saving to buy a house in a nice area for your family, then find out you're living next door to Frank Gallagher &Co
Why should they have everything that you have without lifting a finger?

Really?

Professionals, people with higher salaries, middle class, etc etc can all still be twats - so if the intention is to create a neighbourhood with no anti social behaviour or "chavs" it wouldn't work as money doesn't make people nice neighbours!

Some of the worst neighbours here are the ones who would class themselves as middle class professionals!

Honestly couldn’t think of anything worse - variety is the spice of life and all that! Could easily afford to rent there but we like normal people with normal jobs, not the arrogant idiots who think they’re better than everyone else.

100%! I practically do as I live on a housing estate that was built before you had to give 20% over to SH.

Houses are all over £500k, are all 4/5 bed houses with large gardens and two/three car parking spaces. People do not park on the road so its always clear.

There are lots of things you cant do, such as no caravans on drives, hedges have to be kept tidy and clean, you cant pave over the front garden so it has to remain a garden. We pay an additional £40 a month on our council tax which is just for our estate which pays for bin cleaners, people to mow the communal areas and to trim hedges. We have a road sweeper once a week and bins are emptied constantly.

It is generally a lovely place to live.

Don’t live there then? I’d say most property and rents are priced so that you live with those of similar financial means, just because you can afford the get in price. How’s a row of Victorian London terraced houses any different? It’s likely that all are owned or rented by salaried workers to pay the mortgage or rent to landlord.

I would not choose to live somewhere that wanted to assess me to ensure I was good enough

That sounds AWFUL. I’d loathe it, even if I could pass the checks, which I probably wouldn’t.

Yes I would (and kind of do)
The first house me and DH bought together was on a nice little estate of mixed houses BUT an "affordable housing" part was built next to it. No issue with that until The HA leased quite a few properties to The Council for "problem families".
It was Hell and we were very glad to move out asap (just maanged to get what we paid for the house despite spending thousands on it).
Of course middle class people can also cause issues but we have had no problems at all since living here and get on well with everyone.
I would take snobbery over vandalism any day