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Do Council Houses lower the tone?

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  • barnaby-bear
    barnaby-bear Posts: 4,142 Forumite
    djdido2 wrote:
    i can understand and sympathise living next door to nightmare neighbours. however, judging a woman because she has four kids by four different fathers is just being judgmental. how do u know that her partner has not died?
    All 4! What is she a black widow spider?
    I think you can judge, i.e. no clue how to spot decent father figure and after 3 maybe concentrate on kids rahter than bringing yet another bloke. Of course if she's paying for them all herself I've no comment but when my taxes running the show I feel entitled to opinion on lifestyle since I'm funding the enterprise.
  • LizEstelle
    LizEstelle Posts: 1,559 Forumite
    greencat wrote:
    Fair enough you sound like a good landlord. But...

    A lot of people who rent don't do so out of choice and I would guess most are on AST which means they never know when they are going to be kicked out.

    With renting you are paying for a service which sadly many landlords don't actually provide (ie a properly maintained house as per contract).

    There is also the common (but possibly false) perception that if you spend money on improving your rented house, your landlord will assume you can afford to pay more rent.

    The house that my missus and I rent is easily one of the scruffiest in the street despite the fact that I've repainted much of the exterior and the OH has tamed the jungle/garden. Sorry but I don't intend to pay for double glazing to replace the rotting window frames, replace the missing garden gate or to get the concrete in the front redone as the landlord could ask us to leave next month (and he won't pay for it either).

    Finally I guess some people appear shiftless because they can't see a way out of their situation. I think the tendency of recent BTL/flipper speculators to buy up the cheaper property (and drive up prices) has probably contributed at least a little to this state of affairs.

    Some people have little hope of ever owning their own place or ending up in reasonably secure rented accomodation because of massive house price inflation, changes to renting laws and the big sell off of council houses in the 80s.

    Although I'm earning an above average salary - I'm living on less than a friend who is on the dole in order to save a deposit large enough to buy at a reasonable salary multiple. After a more than a year and a half of this and with no real end in sight - I'm beginning to see why people give up and go on the dole or emmigrate.

    All fair comment.

    I really don't know where the answer to this lies.

    All I was trying to say is that the sniffy thread title seemed to me to be wrongly aimed simply at social housing provided by councils.
  • Mrs_pbradley936
    Mrs_pbradley936 Posts: 14,571 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    I think we are all agreed that it is the people that make an area/community a nice place to live in. I think people did used to be nicer or should I say more civilized. For a start there was lots of manual work available, so no excuse for not having a job if you did not have much of an education. Next, young men had to do National Service (sometime during the 60s it was stopped) so there were no young tearaways hanging around looking for trouble. They also used to have the cane in schools and the police would give you a hard time if you were a nuisance. All of those things meant that even if you had a dysfunctional family with little regard for the neighbours there was another source of principles not very far off. Lots of things have changed, not all of the changes have made life better for us.
  • whambamboo
    whambamboo Posts: 1,287 Forumite
    LizEstelle wrote:
    What seems to 'lower the tone' in this country is the presence of large-scale renting.

    Whether it's council-owned or not doesn't appear to be relevant - sadly, it seems to be more a question of the type of person who prefers renting to buying - the 'it's up to the landlord' attitude is rife and the population seems to be shiftless, with very few wanting to make a real home out of their situation.

    Added to this is the fact that many buy-to-let landlords couldn't care less about the state of their properties WHILE they're being rented and only tart them up prior to re-sale.

    As a landlord myself, I always try to stay on top of maintenance, repairs etc and have tried to make actual improvements by installation of double-glazing and central heating which was not there under previous owner occupation - I always adopt the philosophy that this is 'protecting/enhancing the investment' and find it bizarre that many other landlords seem to think this is a waste of money.

    Not really sure what you are saying....

    Firstly you're blaming the tenants for saying 'it's up to the landlord'. Well, yes it is. If you are a tenant you might move up in a few months, you're not going to plant roses in the garden (because you'll never see them bloom), replace the windows, etc.

    And then you blame the landlords.... This is more valid. Tenants cannot do any external maintenance at all - it's all up to the landlord.

    So apart perhaps from scum tenants who leave rubbish scattered about, it is all the landlords' fault, because everythng else *is* up to the landlord. In fact, the BTL landlords make things worse, because they destroy the community in these places. My friend lives in a flat in Docklands what was originally nearly all owned by owner occupiers. He said the sense of community has completely gone now it's 50% buy-to-let.

    The buy-to-let landlords drive prices up so fewer people can afford to buy. So the only people living in these places are tenants, and with fewer owner occupiers and landlords quite understandably treating their properties as a business and looking to maximise profits, they aren't spending hours on gardening or other things that owner occupiers would do to make the place look nicer.
    My policies are based not on some economics theory, but on things I and millions like me were brought up with: an honest day's work for an honest day's pay; live within your means; put by a nest egg for a rainy day; pay your bills on time; support the police - Margaret Thatcher.
  • I used to live in a new estate which was full of people who had bought their council houses and then moved into private houses,the people are all the same there is yobs in private estates are ther are yobs in council estates,we sold our house in the private estate and now live in a council house in the same village. this stuff about we are better than you because we have bought our house is a joke,we could buy another house but we will not renting is best all repairs done for you by the council who are first class,what we got for our house enabled me and my partner to retire we are both in our fifties,this snobbery we see it here as well from people who should know better who have bought their council house for peanuts,the first thing they do is buy a new car then double glazing then a conservatory and they think they are snobs!!! what ever that means?
    A wise man changes his mind, a fool never will.
    El sabio muda el consejo, el necio no.
  • Peter-Pan wrote:
    I used to live in a new estate which was full of people who had bought their council houses and then moved into private houses,the people are all the same there is yobs in private estates are ther are yobs in council estates,we sold our house in the private estate and now live in a council house in the same village. this stuff about we are better than you because we have bought our house is a joke,we could buy another house but we will not renting is best all repairs done for you by the council who are first class,what we got for our house enabled me and my partner to retire we are both in our fifties,this snobbery we see it here as well from people who should know better who have bought their council house for peanuts,the first thing they do is buy a new car then double glazing then a conservatory and they think they are snobs!!! what ever that means?

    There are those who would argue that they shouldn't be paying taxes to subsidise your rent and allow you to retire early . I don't know about your area but here council rents are about half the market rate.
  • LizEstelle
    LizEstelle Posts: 1,559 Forumite
    whambamboo wrote:
    Not really sure what you are saying....

    Firstly you're blaming the tenants for saying 'it's up to the landlord'. Well, yes it is. If you are a tenant you might move up in a few months, you're not going to plant roses in the garden (because you'll never see them bloom), replace the windows, etc.

    And then you blame the landlords.... This is more valid. Tenants cannot do any external maintenance at all - it's all up to the landlord.

    So apart perhaps from scum tenants who leave rubbish scattered about, it is all the landlords' fault, because everythng else *is* up to the landlord. In fact, the BTL landlords make things worse, because they destroy the community in these places. My friend lives in a flat in Docklands what was originally nearly all owned by owner occupiers. He said the sense of community has completely gone now it's 50% buy-to-let.

    The buy-to-let landlords drive prices up so fewer people can afford to buy. So the only people living in these places are tenants, and with fewer owner occupiers and landlords quite understandably treating their properties as a business and looking to maximise profits, they aren't spending hours on gardening or other things that owner occupiers would do to make the place look nicer.

    Correct, I'm blaming both.

    As said before, I don't know if there IS an answer to the problem. I just don't think that 'lowering of tone' in the UK housing market is only down to council housing. Sorry, I don't.
  • PoorDave
    PoorDave Posts: 952 Forumite
    500 Posts
    hobo28 wrote:
    perception is reality. A lot of people perceive council estates to be a bad area because of the tenants. Therefore if you bought a house there then you may find it harder to sell in the future and maybe won't get as much as a similar home further away.

    That said, my first home was right next to a council estate and I never had any problems. It is the underdesirables though and most families given the choice won't want to live near them, especially if they have kids.

    You may get less when you sell, but chances are you pay less when you buy in the first place.

    We're moving at the moment, from an ex-council/LA house to another area (for work mainly) where we're deliberately avoiding anything even vaguely council, as we're looking to have kids soon, and don't think we want to do that in such an area
    Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery
  • dips_3
    dips_3 Posts: 90 Forumite
    I have lived in council houses on council estates. The first one I lived on was a hell hole. The second one (where I am now) is a nightmare for different reasons. First one - ASBO central. Current one - let's just say it's so 'middle class' that a kid has only got to walk down the street and three neighbours will appear at their doors declaring that society is about to end because the kid is out on the street alone instead of being locked up inside. It's like living in victorian england sometimes.

    So - a mixed bag. It all depends where you are. there are good and bad estates.

    One thing I have noticed though is that council estates can change very very quickly. One year they are wonderful and everyone wants to live there. Within the space of a few months they can be turned into ghetos.

    You have no control over who is housed there. Unlike private estates where the cost of housing acts as some sort of regulation this does not exist on council estates - one family can turn the place into a nightmare.
  • Cristy
    Cristy Posts: 173 Forumite
    Slightly different from the OP but we live on a new development that has a mix of private housing and 'affordable' HA housing. The development is ongoing and more private and affordable houses are being built. Some residents - the ones living in the posher houses - are outraged that they will be building the affordable terraces near them, but to be honest, judging from the HA housing already on the estate, I can't see any problems arising in the future. Actually I think mixed housing is a pretty good idea - and it doesn't seem to affect the value of the private houses at all!
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