nice house but council housing nearby . .

Mankysteve

Sometimes haveing cocuil houses can be a advanatage if any of them are PITA you can eventually get them them evicted while if you PITA neighbour who owns there house your stuck. Now a day chavy kids are just likely to come from home owning middle class family than are from of social housing family.

DrEmma

Hmmm, I also grew up on a council estate so I also kind of take offense to your post. However, council estates do vary so I think you need to investigate more. Being near a council estate may not be as bad as you think. My sister has just purposely bought an ex-council house & it's fabulous - massive rooms, much bigger than any other house she looked at. Saying that, though, she knew the estate & most houses are privately owned. I wouldn't rule out the house - try & get a feel for the area - see everyone else's suggestions. You might be pleasantly surprised....

Mrs_Arcanum

Another ex council house purchaser here. You get a better sized rooms & decent gardens. The cheapest/roughest areas of town are 60/70's built estates (non council).

dizziblonde

I understand where you're coming from OP - when we were looking to buy quite a lot of ex-LA houses came up in our price bracket and I refused to go and see them... because I needed to be living somewhere I felt safe - and after renting in what's commonly regarded as a "good" council estate in the past, and the amount of anti-social behaviour and general "swear the heck off at your neighbour if they look at you" - I wouldn't go there again. It was the youth disorder that particularly wore me down - I made the mistake of signing up to rent without scoping the area at 7pm on a summer evening... found we permanently had kids kicking around outside using language that even made ME blush, neighbours with a dog who'd let it run riot and swore at me for telling it to get away from my cat that it was about to attack... and bonfire night resembled some post apocalyptic horror movie with gangs of youths gathered around bonfires on every bit of green space around - I hated living there so much, never ever felt safe.

We do, however have a council estate of varying amounts of ropyness out of the back of our street - it doesn't really bother me as there's no direct access through and we're a cul-de-sac you don't come down unless you have reason to (cos you'll never get a car back out again basically)... the next street across which DOES have a cutthrough onto the estate does get a bit of passing bother from foot traffic (the crime maps back this one up as well).

End of the day - you can be worried you're being a snob all you want... you've got to feel happy and safe where you live.

Moomin21

I don't know if this is the same everywhere, but we've bought an ex council house recently and the neighbour said that you can tell which ones are STILL council owned, as they have had the roof done, but the people who have bought them haven't bothered to change the roof!

Not seen any trouble yet and still feel safe (although not fully living there yet) and its on a quiet street! we're on the last road of the council estate..if our house was on the next street over (non council) it would have cost about 40k more!!!

Having said that, we went to see some new builds next to a council estate over in Bradford and it was the worst place I have ever seen in my life and we turned round and came back to Leeds!!

Jowo_2

I think it's unfair to assume that snobbery is behind someone's anxiety of living in proximity to a density of social housing. It's unfair also to write-off an estate because of social housing tenure but realistically, even if you ignore the negative stigma associated with social housing these days, there are more likely to be social problems there.

Social housing allocation is such a scarce resource with huge demand and is allocated on a needs based system which means the majority of people gaining a tenancy do so because they are needy, therefore are overwhelmingly dependent on benefits and disproportionately workless.

ruggedtoast

My inlaws live in a really nice, mostly ex LA road. The majority of the houses are now owner occupied and go fast for about £240k. The street next to it is identical except most places go for £180k and take months to sell.

This is because a half dozen are still council houses, and the council has homed several generations of the same problem family in them. They basically consider it to be "their" street, and do their best to force "outsiders" out as soon as they move in.

So it does pay to be a little wary with council places.

neas

When buying a house that you cant leave for say 5 years you want to make sure of the following things:

1. You can sell it without making an obvious loss (obvious loss being buying it without knowing of a new development or say a train track being put throug the garden)
2. That the neighbourhodd is as good as you can get it.. you going to be close to these people alot and if you want to enjoy your outdoor space best make sure they friendly.

Personally i chose an area where there are 0.3% social tenants and 97% privately owned and 2.7% privately rented. Of the 0.3% social tenants these arent housing association houses just social tenants getting rent paid etc.


Why did i pick this area?

1. The houses were slightly more expensive (indication of a good area). This also leads to the following population demographics

a. Better than average healthcare and mental state of occupants
b. Less crime (you can check this now which is great.. my area of 1000 houses had 4 crimes last year... just 1 burglary)...whereas compared to the 'social tenant area near the city center' its more like 200 crimes in the same area.
c. Less chavs, less rubbish, the children and teenagers dont shout at you, dont knife you, and are generally fine. Sure they go drinking im sure of it but they pretty well behaved.. Their parents care for them and invest in them more.

2. The area is in a great suburb location near a national park... means should mantain its price.


basically you can defend social housing all you want the statistics speak for themselves. Yes not all social tenants are 'bad uns' but if you live in an area with social tenants... a minority will be 'bad uns'..... these will make your life hell if you allow them..

That is quiet obvious and why house prices in those areas represent the problem.

I walk past a brand new house every day that has a young couple, social tenants withj a newborn baby.. the houses sell for 121k brand new.

Outside after 2 weeks of living there we have a used mattress and numerous cigarrate butts thrown onto the street. I believe that people who are simply given something will not respect that. Those that are given a roof over their head and do not have to work for it will not treat it, maintain it or respect it... this will degrade the area. Its why people dont want social tenants near privately owned estates... its a pure fact.

isolating the human factor that yes people are just people and some people work hard etc.. the minority WILL spoilt it and thus will spoil it for u.

poppysarah

Moomin21 wrote: »

, as they have had the roof done, but the people who have bought them haven't bothered to change the roof!

An OO asked the roofing company doing the local council house roof replacements for a quote.
"Don't bother mate, there's nothing wrong with them - the council want it doing so we do it."

Pennylane

I'm another one who grew up in a council house. Admittedly it wasn't on a huge estate though, just a small development.

When we kids left home my parents bought it under the Right to Buy Scheme and my Mum still lives in the same house. Many of the houses went the same way and Mum now has a Speech Therapist living one side, 2 teachers the other and a Nurse across the road.

We were a family of 5 (3 kids & 2 parents) but there were several families living in our road with 8, 10 and 12 children in 3 bed houses.

Take a walk and get a feel of the area. There are some very nice council/social housing developments around and it shouldn't put you off.