Shared Ownership: Proximity to Council Properties

Nick_C

Living on a near a Council Estate is not ideal, but this gives you a step onto the property ladder. You should be able to sell in due course to other people who can only afford shared ownership or a property surrounded by social housing.

Take the opportunity. Overpay your mortgage or buy a bigger share. And move on to a better place when you can.

And when you move, move to somewhere that is at least 30 years old, when social engineering didn't inflict this dreadful experiment on owner/occupiers.

Cheeky_Monkey

To answer your question, IMO, the close proximity of the social housing will devalue your property when you come to sell and will reduce the pool of people willing to view it.

As an aside, with only one visitor parking space on your side of the road, I don't fancy your chances of your visitors ever being able to park there as the residents are likely to use it as their own personal space and there won't be anything you can do about it.

Silvertabby

The final stage plans for our estate were approved just before the requirement for X% of properties to be Social Housing became law (late 1990s?).

It may be coincidental, of course, but properties on our estate do seem to sell much faster than similar houses on slightly newer estates........

In one case, however, the lady who bought a friends house a few years ago specifically said that whilst she didn't have anything against council houses - she had been brought up in one - she didn't want to pay £250K to live next door to one.

Even though we are a mixed bag - from retirees to young families - everyone takes a pride in maintaining their properties, and loud parties are few and far between (we can live with the odd late night summer barbecue).

Mind you, having several serving (and retired) police officers living here probably helps!

henrygregory

Lioness_Twinkletoes wrote: »

It's not just noise and loads of kids though - although that in itself is a pain in the summer. I live in a small close, with only 30 houses, plus a small low rise block. The majority of the houses are two beds so there are no big families, but we've still had to deal with the following:

Noise - parties blasting out till 4am, cars blasting out music at all hours, people loudly coming and going at 2am
Kids playing ball in the street with their balls bouncing off the cars.
Kids climbing on the roof of the communal bin area
Littering - the worst littering I have ever seen. Black bags are just dumped near the bin shed because people are too lazy to put it actually in the shed (one tenant just throws it from his front door) so the bags split and rubbish is strewn everywhere
Fly tipping - constant fly tipping from tenants and people that have apparently driven here to fly tip
Graffiti

Other parts of the borough, that are all private houses don't have these issues. I accept anti social behaviour is not exclusive to social housing tenants but what I live with is as carried out by social housing tenants and the HA have proved to be magnificently inept at dealing with it.

Good point. I have counted and there are 11 council allocated properties, 7 of which are 2 bed (3) or three beds. There are then four flats. So there will be a fair few with gardens and potential children.

Nick_C wrote: »

Living on a near a Council Estate is not ideal, but this gives you a step onto the property ladder. You should be able to sell in due course to other people who can only afford shared ownership or a property surrounded by social housing.

Take the opportunity. Overpay your mortgage or buy a bigger share. And move on to a better place when you can.

And when you move, move to somewhere that is at least 30 years old, when social engineering didn't inflict this dreadful experiment on owner/occupiers.

Thank you, that is sound advice.

Cheeky_Monkey wrote: »

To answer your question, IMO, the close proximity of the social housing will devalue your property when you come to sell and will reduce the pool of people willing to view it.

As an aside, with only one visitor parking space on your side of the road, I don't fancy your chances of your visitors ever being able to park there as the residents are likely to use it as their own personal space and there won't be anything you can do about it.

It seems the map I uploaded was an older one. They have released a new one which shows no bay allocations or visitor bays. I note that the abundance of visitor bays which were in the top left have now all vanished and there are car barns and a couple of extra properties squeezed in.
https://s17.postimg.cc/pb6vehrdb/Housing_Allocation.png

Cakeguts

The point about this is that housing associations build social housing. Anything that is rented from a housing associations is social housing. This includes shared ownership because you are sharing ownership with a social housing provider and the rented bit is social housing. It makes sense for the builder to put all the social housing together which is what they have done. Wherever you buy shared ownership you are going to be in the social housing part of an estate. The only way to get round this is to not buy shared ownership or to rent a house in the private ownership part of the estate.

SG27

It will probably effect future value. Especially being in a cul de sac. You could be unlucky and get a bad few families that could make the little road an unpleasant place to live.

I have a council estate near me, prices of a 3 bed semi there are around £250k. 2 roads away its £350k for a similar size.

Cheeky_Monkey

henrygregory wrote: »

It seems the map I uploaded was an older one. They have released a new one which shows no bay allocations or visitor bays. I note that the abundance of visitor bays which were in the top left have now all vanished and there are car barns and a couple of extra properties squeezed in.
https://s17.postimg.cc/pb6vehrdb/Housing_Allocation.png

Oh dear, that looks even worse :eek:

HanPop

Just thought I would let you know my opinion. We bought a shared ownership property 4 years ago on a new estate, to the left the houses are all shared ownership, opposite are all full priced, to the right are a mixture of shared ownership and council rented. To be honest we have not had any particular issues. A couple across the road have a loud party only once a year (full priced property) and have never heard any noise from the council tennants apart from young children playing in the garden but that!!!8217;s about it. We have recently bought the whole of our property and are planning to sell it in the near future and do not think it will be devalued because of council tennants close by, after all how will any one know they are council tennants? It was only on the original plans when the estate was built and they look no different from the other houses.

hammy1988

Cakeguts wrote: »

The point about this is that housing associations build social housing. Anything that is rented from a housing associations is social housing. This includes shared ownership because you are sharing ownership with a social housing provider and the rented bit is social housing. It makes sense for the builder to put all the social housing together which is what they have done. Wherever you buy shared ownership you are going to be in the social housing part of an estate. The only way to get round this is to not buy shared ownership or to rent a house in the private ownership part of the estate.

No, not always.

We have shared ownership houses dotted all around our estate, and no bundles of social housing together more than about four at a time. In fact, my friend has just got a social housing house on a wainhomes estate, and she and her next door neighbour are in semi detached house. Directly opposite are four/five bed private houses. No other social housing are on that street...

henrygregory

Cheeky_Monkey wrote: »

Oh dear, that looks even worse :eek:

Yes! I thought it looked worse in real life than my original plan.

HanPop wrote: »

Just thought I would let you know my opinion. We bought a shared ownership property 4 years ago on a new estate, to the left the houses are all shared ownership, opposite are all full priced, to the right are a mixture of shared ownership and council rented. To be honest we have not had any particular issues. A couple across the road have a loud party only once a year (full priced property) and have never heard any noise from the council tennants apart from young children playing in the garden but that!!!8217;s about it. We have recently bought the whole of our property and are planning to sell it in the near future and do not think it will be devalued because of council tennants close by, after all how will any one know they are council tennants? It was only on the original plans when the estate was built and they look no different from the other houses.

Thanks for your post. It really is luck of the draw. Being a current housing association tenant, my street are all on private rent, no benefits etc, and the parking is awful here. Litter is always a problem, so this is concerning me.

hammy1988 wrote: »

No, not always.

We have shared ownership houses dotted all around our estate, and no bundles of social housing together more than about four at a time. In fact, my friend has just got a social housing house on a wainhomes estate, and she and her next door neighbour are in semi detached house. Directly opposite are four/five bed private houses. No other social housing are on that street...

I do feel that I have been somewhat mislead here as the housing association never told me that there would be such a clump of council houses. As you rightly say, most are dotted around.

A friend of mine had a good idea to at least put my mind at rest....Email the housing association and ask for what their policies are on antisocial behaviour as well as litter etc. The service charge for my house would be £45 per month, so I should also look into what this covers.

My worry is that regardless of what policies etc say, weather a HA actually does what they are supposed to is a completely different matter.