Would you (or have you) buy an ex-council house?

alchemist.1

Just have to be careful on the area. Having grown up on one I can see why there is stigma attached to them.

I imagine there is quite a bit of difference between some of the estates in London majority of which have bought out to somewhere like Ordsall.

VultureDodger

I own an ex-council house in Shropshire, which we bought for absolute peanuts. It was okay here for the first few years, as most people in the street had bought their houses and looked after them well. Fast forward 10 years and most of them have moved on, selling their homes to private landlords, who now rent them out to... well... people who really don't care about the area or their neighbours. Don't get me wrong, we have some truly lovely neighbours, but there are some who really do ruin it for the rest of us. There is now a couple of drug dealers, a convicted rapist and a !!!!!phile living in our street, along with the general feral kids who even at a young age, seem to loiter the streets past 10pm. I don't let my children play out in the street and I feel that I'm depriving my kids of their childhood. We're desperate to move now (hence my loitering this board) and can't wait to get off this estate.

I totally agree that not every estate is as bad as ours (some are worse, some are much better) and I'm sure that, at some point in the next 20 years or so, there'll be a fair amount of gentrification or demolition, but for now, I want to raise my family in a nicer area. If you have a family or plan to have one in the future I'd very much recommend that you carefully consider whether the house that you plan to buy is in an area that you wish to raise children. We're lucky in some ways that our street isn't 'en route' to anywhere, isn't by the shops and doesn't have a park (all of these locations tend to attract problems).

Please don't think me a snob - I was born and raised on a council estate, Our house is a brilliant size and has served us reasonably well, but I'd happily exchange that for a more modest sized one in a nicer area.