Ex-council houses - would you invest?

codetown

how do you know if a house is ex-council?
Is there any register of them somewhere?

Dealmad

I think its wrong that people are allowed to buy there Council homes , Council homes are for people who are not well off etc

There is already a shortage of council homes and people homeless and people desperate for a home and people are buying up all the council properties :mad:

Former_MSE_Forum_Manager

I think i must point out that whilst we encourage discussion and viewpoints, we urge all posters to consider the effect of sweeping generalisations. For any given situation, there are always going to be the bi-polar good and bad ends; it's important to consider how posts and particularly tone in posts is likely to be received.

flea72

not all council houses are on estates. i think houses on estates are worth less, than non-estate houses, its just that up until recent years, private housing estates werent being built.

Put a lot of people in a small area, you will obviously get pockets of houses, which are classed as a problem, and as such the modern housing estates that are being built, will in doubt, be classed as nondesirable areas to live in future years, all down to the odd person causing problems

However areas do change. The once no-go 'council' estate in my area, 20 yrs later, is now the place, most people want to live, and as such, are outpricing the new builds in the area.

Flea

emmaBZ

Hi Id Go For It We Bought Our Council House For £95,000 2 Yrs Ago Its Now Valued At £180,000 Most Houses In Our Strret Are Private Now And I Think You Get A Better Built House Sooo Much Bigger We Would Never Find A Private House As Big As Ours That Cheap Also As For Coucil Selling Of Its Stock Resulting In Homeless People We Were Living In This House Anyway So It Wasnt Availible To Any One Else Anyway And This Was The Only Way We Were Able To Get On Property Ladder

UK007BullDog

The only ones to stay away from are the concrete slabs type houses/flats due to concrete cancer problems. Also because it is very difficult to get a mortgage on those.

If I could turn the time back 2 to 3 years I would have tried to buy the ex-council flats in my area. They were going for £45K, now they are valued at £102K.

My house is also an ex-LA. I bought it for £102K in 2000, now the value is £235K, OK it needed a new bathroom, new windows and a new heating system, but all worth it. Also as it is a 3 storey semi townhouse I have offroad parking for nearly 3 cars, side access to my back garden and also the largest garden in the area. The new builds from Wimpey and Barrats are all full of private tennants but they are not looking after the places at all. Quite a few have eviction notices on the doors. They are also a lot smaller and as they are sitting directly next to the road only offer allocated parking or street parking, yet, because they are new builds they are going for more, than mine, just because it is ex-LA. But I have more space in mine and I am happy. I dont need an en-suite bathroom, because that then just takes the space away from a bedroom. My house has 3 double & 1 single bedrooms, lage lounge large seperate diningroom, huge kitchen and I mean huge with seperate dining area, 1 full bathroom and 1 full shower room with sink and toilet.

We were looking to buy another property to get closer to the train stations and looked at properties (not ex-LA) valued at around £300K but they are so tiny compared to ours. Also they push up the price there as they are very close to the grammar schools. We have now decided that we will stay where we are and maybe add a conservatory instead and invest in a couple of BTL properties for the kids now so that they have a place of their own once they are done with college and Uni.

lowis

Dealmad - RTB is for people who aren't particularly well off too. The only thing wrong with RTB is that it is half a policy - the other half should have been to build new housing stock to replace that which had been purchased.

i am putting in to buy my flat right at this moment - if for any reason i can't buy it then i will more than likely just stay in it until the day i die and then my descendants will get it - so it won't actually be available for anyone else anyway for atleast a good 50 years...and by then i can guarantee that the councils will have sold off all the 'decent' council homes to Private Finance Initiative companies because the council can't afford to run them, who in turn will put up rents dramatically, in effect charging market rents for council stock.

to an extent it is already starting to happen - my local council Islington has sold off maintenance and repairs contracts to private companies for the council-owned street properties in my area. private companies are all about profit - and this is reflected in the poor quality of the recent renovations the street properties have had done to them. i can't help but wonder why they want to run these gorgeous houses down...perhaps they think they will get to but them cheaply in the future?

Anyway - i can't see many more people buying as the discounts have been slashed and in most areas of London it is now impossible to afford your home under RTB (I applied before th changes came in to effect).

newmoneysaver_2

Its the same with any house - house/space vs location.

We have just sold a huge ex-la house, driveway, garage, 3 bed, 2 reception etc.. it was a lovely house - we fully modernised it, new kitchen bathroom etc... it's just the area became too much. It was a mix of private and council houses, we just seemed to have got the rough uns in. Drug dealer accross the road, another property constantly borded up, guy getting battered with a hammer right outside out house. I am not saying that all council houses are gonna atract this kind of trouble, it possible to get this on new estates to. We have sold up and bought a much smaller house in a nicer area.

For me, if it's the right house, in the right locataion who cares if it is ex-la?