Anyone live on a new build estate with Social Housing?

pbfhpunk

I live in a shared ownership house on a new estate and on the plan my house (and about 10 others in the street) are marked as social housing. I'm living there because I used to won a house and sold it when I was married my ex spent all of my money and we rented for years and when we finally split was lucky enough to have parent's help me with paying a small deposit for an SO house rather than continuing renting and never get back to owning a property. I think there is some other SH on the estate which is more of what people are talking about where they're rented, and the only way you'd know is because, for some reason, they have bright green doors! My house is worth about £200k and I have a friend who lives on the small estate in his mortgage owned £350k house, he wishes he'd got a SO one now as he thinks mine is nicer than his, it came with lots of things he's had to pay extra for! all my wet rooms are tiled with designer tiles - that he had to pay a lot for - I have lights in the cupboard under the stairs, my oven is the same as he had to pay extra to upgrade. My neighbours all look like respectable people who wanted to live somewhere nice and quiet but maybe couldn't afford a £50k deposit.

pixie1980

For the past 16 years I have lived in housing association and council housing. I currently live on a street where most of the houses are council and only two are privately owned and it's the privately owned ones which have all the rubbish outside!! Usually councils and housing associations will have clauses in the tenancy agreement which state that gardens and houses should be kept in a good condition. I'm not saying everyone in affordable housing will keep their property the way you would like but neither will all the people in private accomodation and at least you will have somewhere to complain to if social housing tenants cause an eyesore or dispruptance, with privately owned properties you would not have the same regulation. Social housing tenants can be evicted for breaching their tenancy conditions after all.

pixie1980

Hehehehe

Mallotum_X wrote: »

Buy pitchforks to keep the hoards at bay.

kilby_007

Lived on a new build housing estate built 2000-2010. The "social housing" was built at quite a late stage and according to our neighbours it felt like a proper community to begin with. After a few years though there were a few unsavoury characters move into the social housing area - drug dealers and trouble causers. As time progressed it got worse, and our daughter was just starting to walk and visit the park in the middle of the estate, I saw what the other kids were like (smoking, swearing & talking about very "adult" things at a very young age), and we decided we didn't want her growing up there. We sold up and we're now renting a house on the edge of a council estate and we're finding people there are much more down to earth and civilised. I'm not sure why council estate housing differs to social housing on new build sites, but personally, I wouldn't buy a new build near to social housing again.

Andrew_Ryan_89

Deleted_User wrote: »

Ok thanks, don't know why the sales advisor wouldn't give me any details about it...

Some people are not fans of sharing space with social housing and in new estates, they are usually put to one side and kept as separate as possible to private tenants. With that said, I know 2 people who are moving because, according to them, Housing Association tenants are a big problem.

rtho782

The most amusing thing is that the Social Housing provision is usually built to a higher standard with larger rooms and more storage - as the housing associations are not interested in the poorly finished rabbit hutches the builders usually throw up.

So those in Social Housing will probably be in better houses too

jjj1980

Just to come at this from a different angle, I currently live in SH on a new build estate. Of the 74 houses built, there 10 SH ones. A mixture of 2 & 3 beds. Without it being advertised as such, the 2 bed houses were all aimed at working single mothers. The only way you would know ours are differently owned is that they are the only 2 beds on the street and for the 3 beds, the gardens had merely been fenced on two sides and turf laid. All privately bought had fully lanscaped gardens, to the buyer's designs. If we want to do any work to our gardens in SH houses, it takes a year or two of authorisation planning before we are allowed. Just to ask for allowance to complete the third side of fencing to mine, with matching fencing to the other sides, is so far taking 2 years due to the checks the HA are making.

Some of the privately owned houses on our estate were bought at between £550,000 and £630,000. The biggest most expensive house on the estate is the one our Neighbourhood Watch group is constantly reporting to the police for nuisance behaviour!! So far there has been noise disturbance to the whole estate from their parties, their dog has attacked four other dogs and two bin men and they constantly block the access road to their part of the estate with numerous visitor's cars.

There was one lady who admits she bought at the front of the estate to stay away from the SH properties at the back as she had heard horror stories elsewhere. She then walked past one day to use the little footpath through to the nearby sheltered housing and after chatting to three of us, did an exchange to one the last few private houses that were still being finished alongside our houses. she says now that she feels much more settled, the children in our houses are the quietest on the street and we seem the most keen on the area being kept tidy and peaceful. From my point of view, I am keen with this as I want my daughter growing up in quiet surroundings and to see the benefits of having respect for others and where you live. Unfortunately, due to the circumstances her father caused financially, I am unable to consider buying yet but it makes no difference. I still keep the same respect for my house.

To back up application for this house, I had to get references from the council, previous landlord and also my employer. The rent is almost double that of a council house in the same suburb and the house is around half the size of the council ones.

pinkshoes

I lived on a street with 1/3 social housing. Of the 30 properties, MOST were lovely.

Unfortunately it only took one social tenant to disrupt the whole street. Drink driving, late night parties, people screaming and trying to kick their door down in the night, thefts linked to them etc... And it was a NIGHTMARE getting any anything done about them despite people complaining, calling police etc... 2 years later I moved out as they were still there.

Of course you also get nightmare private tenants. I had an annoying one of those too, but after several of us informed the landlord, the tenancy was not renewed and was replaced with a lovely tenant.

I guess it does depend on whether the LL wants a disruptive tenant or not!

xylophone

Hehehehe

At the spelling? Unless Mallotum really did mean "hoards"...... rather than "hordes":)

quelfie83

I'm along with jjj here - me and hubby qualify for social housing as he does work, but it's low income and our first baby is due in just over a month. It doesn't necessarily mean all SH will be filled with rowdy people - we looked at the crime rates and google mapped the area before having a look at it, and it's a really nice place in a small area that's perfect for us. And SH/HA tenants do have a code of conduct they have to abide by, and if they don't you're at risk of getting kicked out and not allowed back on the list for anti-social behaviour/intentionally making yourself homeless.

Also, for the first year you're kinda on a probationary tenancy, if you screw up or cause harassment/anti social behaviour, you can and will be kicked out for it.