Who is the developer? And in what area? Outside of the central belt of Scotland and around London new build housing sales really haven’t picked up much so you should be able to negotiate a good deal. My main bit of advice would be to avoid Barratts, try and find one of the smaller new build developers. Mansell homes are very good, though slightly more expensive.

Living near teachers ! Gallaghers come back.

An update:

We both went to have a long hard look around the house in question again today (it’s an 850 house development called Abbotswood in Romsey for those that were wondering), whilst we were there someone was moving in to one of the rented housing association flats directly opposite.

They were all dressed head to toe in clothes from JD Sport’s evening wear section.

We walked away feeling like we’ve just dodged a bullet.

Honeybadger – judging by the number of new developements going up locally here in north east scotland i think your wrong.

At least 5 different developments with 2 miles of my work. On land youd never buy a house on with half a brain and they are selling ! Floodplains and my favorite – between the airport and the railway line( east coast main line) That will be hell !

My tuppence worth – there are no hard and fast rules with mixed tenure(private and affordable) developments, some are succesfull while others are not. I work for a large national contractor doing private, HA or mixed developments and have seen plenty of them from adjudication level through to completion and visited a few a couple of years after completion.
A successfull development which i have been working on for 6 years is in Meir Heath on the Western side of Stoke which involved demolishing a load of post WW2 pre-fabricated houses and building a mixture of bungalows, 2&3 storey houses – some of which would be used as housing stock for the existing residents. The area was notorius for crime, vandalism and anti-social behaviour. As we started rehousing some of the locals in the new properties there were incidents of vandalism, burglary etc, what happened was the “good” locals who could see the benefit of the new development and the nice new houses they could possibly get, started to kick back against the handfull of scrotes who didn’t wan’t the new development. Within a short time there was a real sense of community and the scrotes were left very isolated. As part of the regeneration scheme, there was a lot ofconsultation with the existing residents and their views and requests were considred and implemented wherever possible. We have had quite a bit of success with our private sales as well, and the houses we have sold, do not suddenly have “For Sale” boards appearing once they realise they are amongst social / affordable housing.
We have another development in Camp Hill Nuneaton – that is the complete opposite, an absoulute nightmare.

This thread is a serious eye opener and worthy of both “Jesus wept” and “Wow, just wow”.

Shakes head and walks off.

Radio 4 hand wringing welcome here!

whether rules are being relaxed or not the bigger and newer the development the greater the level of social/affordable housing there has to be. Depends on the nature of the housing and the occupants- lots of decent people who cant afford high prices, quite a few socially-housed dross. You wont know on a new build, its more obvious on established estates. I’ve gone to view houses and driven straight passed after looking at the neighbourhood- call it snobbery, social profiling, elitism or whatever but thanks to my job I’ll make broad judgements (which I consider necessary for something as important as housing, and in my line of work I’d rather not have tyres slashed every week…). The social housing part of our estate (all on one street) is a pretty even mix of coppers, teachers, nurses, drug dealers and burglars.

We idly looked at an offensive needless green belt development executive eco-town being knocked up in our area. Houses are on top of each other, and 4-bed houses come with a “covered car port” – we have a 2-bed with a garage and were hoping for a double garage due to bikes, motorbikes etc.

Not on a new development but maybe I can give you a picture of what it can be like nearly 20 years down the line (we’ve lived here 6 years). Small development of 20-ish houses, 7 private detached 4 beds (I live in one of these), 2 privately owned then the rest are HA owned and shared ownership. We’re a small close in a medium sized village.

To be frank it’s lovely. Most of those in the HA properties grew up in the village, most have lived in their houses for a while. Everyone does their bit and looks after what they’ve got. We might not all be best mates but everyone says hello, how are you etc…..

However, we had our house on the market last summer after seeing a lovely house we wanted. We had quite a bit of interest and a (low) offer. But the feedback we got from most is that whilst they liked our house they wouldn’t put an offer in as they didn’t like looking out to the shared/HA owned houses at the front (despite the fact we have open fields to the back) and the possible “problems associated” – there haven’t been any problems, but that doesn’t stop people’s preconceptions.

One day ill have that issue hammerite , im attached to a cooncil house.

On my side is the fact we are miles from town so hopefully keep the gadgees away. And lets face it im probably more likely to be the problem owner than amy tennent. I like to play with dnb , power tools and v8s

I grew up on a council estate, most hassle we got was from an old couple who liked to flout the law by closing up closes through the estate to stop through traffic claimng them as their own land and putting up cctv cameras.

Everyone else got on well.

You may have dodged a bullet, but moving to Romsey? Surely that’s akin to standing in front of a rail gun 😉

Romsey, compared to Southampton is a veritable Utopia!

*makes mental note to wave at gixer next time I’m at Meir Heath*

we live on a fairly nice estste.. 4/5 bed detached with a dozen or so social housing properties two doors up from us.. they stand out a mile. they all have satellite dishes and two cars on the drive that mostly stay there all day.

I live on a 600 house estate–95% ‘social’ housing– would not want to live anywhere else…..there are a few anti-social people here, but they are kept in line 😉

So by your measurements im in social housing mr total shell.

Sky dish outside connected to nowt and at least 2 cars on the drive all day

I live in a shared ownership house because when the other half and I decided to buy, the market was still strong as we couldn’t afford anything else. The houses tat we did look at that we could have bought all of we’re awful. They were all in rough estates, not very nice ad generally a bit rank.

Admittedly our house is a bit unusual in he fact that its hit new – it’s a 1920’s end terrace. This is our first house and its he only way we could have got something of this size with a drive, a garage and a decent garden. As far as I know the other houses in our street are fully owned.

I don’t think shared ownership is all that bad because in certain areas its all a lot of first time buyers can afford. Not so sure about the rented housing association stuff, but again it depends on the area. My aunt lives in Chipping Norton and a new estate was built there with social housing and a lot of people were snobby about it. In fact the houses are nice and the tenants aren’t your typical housing association types. I guess it may be different in a place tats not so nice.

I do kind of understand why the planning policy tried to mix people from different backgrounds.

totalshell – Member
we live on a fairly nice estste.. 4/5 bed detached with a dozen or so social housing properties two doors up from us.. they stand out a mile. they all have satellite dishes and two cars on the drive that mostly stay there all day.

I call troll 🙂

Jesus Christ, hen, breathe!.

Another first post wonder 🙄

Come in red bands, that’s you used up today’s Internet capital letter budget.

Yup.
You boobed.
Please don’t take it out on us.

Interesting comments as ever…I sometimes think this should be renamed ClarksonTrackWorld (apart from the fact he hates bikes) Anyway, Im sure theres a proposed repeal of the mandatory social housing being proposed by the the Condems for next year. So perhaps wait awhile, save a bit more deposit and then move when you think its safe. Of course you could get some horrible neighbours whatever you do. You pays your money you take your choice.

I worked as a gas engineers in social housing, going on the new estates and in the new properties made my piss boil, they would all and i mean all be trashed, they dont have to pay there hard earned money for it or fix it so they treat it like shit. My mate lives next door to a bunch of tracksuit warriors, hes ex 59 commando so a quick threat at night time when they were acting like only that type can andnthey have behaved ever since as the path of least resistance was cut of for them

It’s thread like these that make we wonder if I live in the same country as everyone else…..

As for cars on the drive – maybe they cycle to work? My car (when I had one) would sit for weeks on end outside the house without moving an inch…

I don’t understand the posts with no punctuation. It’s like streams of consciousness. A bizarre concioisness and possibly alien.

This thread is ace. Its like a magnet to catch all the ****……. And yes I do realise it now includes me. Bravo chaps keep it up.

Edit… Someones removed the bestest posts 🙁

Affordable housing on new build estates SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED! And I’ll tell you why! We bought a new build house 8 months ago. We were given to believe that there would only be 15% affordable housing – for public sector workers, nurses, teachers, police etc. We could see no problem with that. Respectable working tenants should be fine as our neighbours? Apart from the fact after we moved into our four bed ‘luxury’ new home ,we found that the affordable housing is in fact occupied by those in social deprivation, the very poor, low income, benefits dependent families, each that clearly come with their own serious issues! And more like 50% affordable housing – to me they’re just a posher version of typical council houses. The tenants DO NOT DESERVE TO BE HOUSED IN LUXURY NEW HOMES WHEN THEY HAVE NO RESPECT FOR THE COMMUNITY. Barking dogs, six plus children per family, long term jobless, high NOISE levels, high police presence – that’s the reality of it all! Not something we wanted for our family. Even the new build school is as rough as a ghetto (the ofsted report backs that statement up), no joke. There are always several police cars parked outside the school gates. It’s awful walking past the school at the end of the school day, the ‘parents’ really do take a lot to be desired, and I tend to avoid shopping at the local Tesco Express, opposite the school, for the same reasons! It’s over run with feral children, and illiterate sounding parents who have no idea of discipline! What makes it worse is that we know these ‘affordable housing’ tenants pay no rent and no council tax, yet they get to live in a luxury new build just like us – only difference is we work hard to pay our mortgage, and we teach our children right from wrong! I don’t know whose idea it was to build such homes so close to private homes, because it is wrong! Fine, if these affordable housing tenants must have brand spanking new houses, then build them far enough away from respectable working mortgage payers, so as not to cause our lives a nuisance!

You wouldn’t believe how happy that’s made me.

Please make my day and tell me how much your house has dropped in value in the last 8 months.

I’m sure the Daily Hate is running a campaign to get it’s handful of IT literate readers to create accounts on here and post stuff (to counter the Guardian reader bias)….

Rule of thumb…

Never ever buy a new build property in a recession

Builders/developers margins are cut too fine, ergo the quality goes through the floor (literally). The cheaper the property the worse it gets

Regardless of the NHBC guaruntee or not, all that means is every major building system (roof, windows, doors, heating, electrics) will have been specced & costed to last just over ten years, i.e. just outwith the NHBC guaruntee.

I have seen some appalling faults, huge snagging lists and scarey construction standards, and sh@tty attitudes even from the “quality” builders and developers, at the lower end of the market this trait is amplified.

No matter what they claim in the advertising they don’t tend to answer to their customers (after all it ain’t exactly a business model based on lots of “repeat business” is it?) they answer to their shareholders, once sold it ain’t their problem really and at the end of the day THEY can afford better solicitors than you and will play the “who runs out of money first” game through the courts.

See it from the inside which is one of the reasons I don’t work in the industry… cynical moi? 😕

Oh and as to the middle class snobs who deplore social housing…

Becareful as YOU are the ones in this day and age who are more likely to be end up repossesed and in social housing when the world realises it doesn’t need your “Telephone Sanitiser Advertising Sales Account Executive” or “Corporate Re-Financing Manager” skill set….

There is more nobility and honour in a the most menial job than there ever will be in “middle management” role.

TooTall – Member

I’m baffled as to why you would be wanting to buy a new build. I’ve not seen anything built in the last 10 years that was anything other than pokey, badly laid out, poorly constructed and on marginal land in the unknown end of town.
^this

My last house was a new build where all the houses on the opposite side of the road were “affordable housing”.

Surprising though it may seem, the people in the houses opposite turned out to be completely normal.

Surprising though it may seem, the people in the houses opposite turned out to be completely normal.

😆 😆 😆