New build on a new estate and social housing. I expect I’ll get torn to shreds but can I have your experiences please?

[ohwhats]

We are looking at buying the last house on a street that backs on to an area of the new estate that will be 50 plus houses owned by a housing association.
The house will be a real bargain, they are throwing all sorts of incentives in as I’m sure they want it sold asap as it will be ready in about 6 weeks time.
The sales advisor explained that the tenants will all be working and they won’t be misbehaving as they will lose their tenancy if they do.
DH thinks it will be fine and we should take a chance but I’m really not sure. Had anyone bought next to AH on a new build estate?

It's really difficult to avoid HA because there has to be a social housing provision on every development and you never know who owns the house next door, it could be the HA as an "affordable" rental

It’s not so difficult - you just don’t buy on an estate or near one.

if the builder builds the houses as part of their Section 106 fulfilment then yes the properties may well be built to a lower spec. For instance silver coloured door furniture and lower spec kitchens. However the HA I worked for would often get approached by builders who wanted to shift a portion of their stock and would offer them to put HA from the private properties. Often we did these as shared ownership but equally could put them into our rental portfolio.

No way would I claim that all of our tenants were anti social, in fact the reverse is true. We had old established estates that worked beautifully, apart from the odd bad household, it’s just that these new properties, on new estates had council nominations that were disruptive.

At the bottom of the property ladder estates are very difficult to avoid.

So if you can only afford a shared ownership property (which is also on my list of no-no’s) then yes I would agree.

The worst neighbours I ever had were private tenants, but in a poor neighborhood with a slum landlord who could only get desperate people to fill his properties. So I think the overall neighborhood matters more than SH or not.

However at the same property I was surrounded by SH. No problems from the actual SH neighbours, but it was a nightmare whenever the HA did work on the properties. I was expected to put up with noise (starting 7am), mess, inconvenience, scaffolding everywhere, having my garden destroyed, and no proper warning of any of it. I eventually refused access which made them very cross but they had detroyed my things and didn't care.

Don’t do it OP we had to move from what we thought would be a long term home because we were next to a social housing estate and just had a lot of unsociable behaviour around us and didn’t feel safe.

This is true, there is a woman on Instagram and TikTok that’s got six unruly wild children that she films herself causing absolute bloody mayhem for the neighbours with. It’s a 4 bedroom house in the south West. It’s got to be worth 1 million if you were buying it.
The poor neighbours

I would never!

We moved into our new build 7 years ago. Half the street is shared ownership and half social housing. Everyone is absolutely lovely, both sides. The most noise we get are from those who fully privately own at the back of our gardens.

Social houses in new estates are being given to the boat people. Be very careful

We bought our current house in 2007, a new build. One of the mortgage conditions was to confirm there was no social housing within a certain distance (I can’t remember what the distance was) which, IMO, is a clear indicator that our lender felt SH was problematic

Edited to add that back in 2007 there was no requirement for SH to be included in all new developments

I work in factoring and can tell you sales advisors will tell you anything. They told one of my blocks of flats that the solar panels on the roof would provide free electricity so in the summer they could do all their washings free of charge during the day. In reality they MIGHT power the stair lights on a good day, but they’re not linked to private supplies. Social housing can be problematic - I see deterioration of nice estates, fly tipping, vandalism etc. every day. That said, private tenants can be the same and even sometimes owners. Although resident owners in my experience tend to care more about where they live. Not all tenants but enough to make it a risk. I’ve also worked as a housing officer and can tell you it’s very hard to evict someone. In the event of antisocial behaviour, be ready for them to ask you to keep a diary of antisocial behaviour for months and not a lot done about it. Best bet if you want the house is visit at night and check for noise, scope it out over however long you have to decide/commit. Look at those social houses for broken fences, deteriorating and uncared for gardens, bulky items or household waste outside for weeks and that should give you an idea. Albeit tenancies change hands so really no guarantees, but might give you an idea what you’d be in for initially, if anything. Worth saying though that I do see social housing developments in lovely condition with great people. And for the avoidance of doubt this is my professional experience. I’m not bias and grew up in social housing.

So true. The post appears to have all folk who live in social housing. Are drunks. Lazy don't work. And the kids are scum.
Im in a Council house. Worked all my life . Couldn't buy a house as always doing jobs snobs won't do. Nursing homes. Bars . Pubs .restaurants. cafes. All my kids did uni. 1 did a masters. All work. All well mannered. They are all aware those who work where we clean up for . Are simple. Ignorant and thick.
Don't judge unless your a Q.C.
I may live in a council house but it will be cleaner than your house.
I also can bake. Wallpaper paint. Put items together. I know more about Brain tumour. SIDS.
I know lots of medical knowledge. I can resus. Id walk to work so slimmer than most my age oh I don't judge.

My husband worked as an electrician on social housing for 12 years. He always said that most tenants were decent people, but it only took one or two problem families to ruin an estate.

We found out the hard way when we moved into an estate in 2010. Two flats in particular made everyone's lives on the estate a nightmare. Kids constantly damaging cars, the tenants friends parking in allocated spaces. Broken glass bottles everywhere. The Police/ fire brigade would also be out almost every weekend without fail.

We attracted the wrath of one of these families, after supposedly "grassing" up her sister's car for no road tax. ( all we did was ask her not to park it in our parking space). And what was supposed to be our place to relax and have a safe place for the kids to grow up, had us constantly on edge waiting for the next occurrence of peti vandalism or antonsocial behaviour aimed at us.

I live on a new build estate and regularly walk past the SH homes. They're not bad. One of the houses perpetually smells of weed, several look a bit unkempt/neglected and there's definitely more litter blowing around that part of the estate, but I haven't noticed any other antisocial behaviour. The loud music and late-night parties come from our very nice, home-owning neighbours!

🤣

👏👏👏👏👏👏

My sister lives on a new estate. It’s basically a council estate with privately owners expensive properties on. devalues her house. Constant issues with anti social behaviour. Wrecked play park. Graffiti etc. Once they’ve all sold, they DGAS at the sales office - it’s either a civil matter or a police matter. Avoid.

One of the biggest cunts I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet in my life is a nurse
And most of the useless idiots I’ve had the misfortune to meet have been therapists

The Boat People? Are they a spin-off from The Village People?

But it sounds like you’ve got a chip on your shoulder?

We have lived in our new build since 2015. Small estate of only 54 houses. We have 3 social houses behind us. Two, no issues, the third is hell on earth. Lady cough her guts up in the back garden literally every morning 4-5am, smokes weed all times of the day, screaming at her chap, police turn up. And the have a bully dog left out in the garden for hours on ending just barking. They are a nightmare to live behind. Wouldn’t buy another new build with social housing so close.

The hard truth is, council or social housing and communities just aren’t what they were, which was good old fashioned working class people and livelihoods. Now, they are majority workshy tenants who know how to fiddle the system and don’t care for much or foreign imports who come from places where homely pride isn’t even a concept. A lot of the genuine hard workers have clawed their way out of such areas, the rest either won’t or can’t. I think that’s pretty evident from the responses.

For years ppl have been complaining on MN that social housing should only be for the most desperate
Now that is exactly what has happened ppl on MN are complaining
The cognitive dissonance is stark