Buying Next Door to Social House

Even if it wasn't earmarked for social housing, you could get the neighbours from Hell.

I can empathise.

If it's any consolation (it may not be); you can end up with bad next-door neighbours no matter what you buy, unless you buy a detached property with a lot of land (you own) around it.

I believe 10% of new builds are designated as social housing? What your describing is a reality for people buying brand new houses. I'm, shamelessly, one of those people that doesn't want to pay my hard earned money to live next to someone that got their house for next to nothing.

I'd guess that mixing standard and social housing is there to relieve the lack of housing but also to possible diminish the disparity between standard people and those on social welfare. I believe that starts with education; don't bother doing anything beyond your leaving cert....you'll get a free house while all the other saps are working to pay off their six figure mortgages. Why should someone who pays 500k for a house have to live next door (or as good as) to someone who paid nothing?

Walk away from it.

Walk away

So you wouldn't want to live next door to someone who's parents set up a trust fund to buy their children a house, or someone who inherited their one? You'd prefer to live beside someone like my neighbour, the local drug dealer who spent €400,000 of his "hard earned" cash on a lovely house that now's in complete disrepair, surrounded with dog kennels filled with dogs that bark all night? Raided by the Guards bi-annually but is never arrested and beats the **** out of his girlfriend on a fairly regular basis, but at least he pays his mortgage.

As long as you go into it with your eyes open.

Do all the checks you can but ultimately you cannot control who your neighbour is.

If the area ticks all your boxes & you can see yourself living there for at least 15 years, go for it.

Don''t buy to sell again in a few years....that could cost you...

OP my advice is this go up to the estate late on a Saturday night and observe for an hour or so, then I would knock into both sets of neighbors on Sunday morning around 11ish (if they like a drink/drugs you will probably catch them hungover or at their worse) and it will give you an inkling of what you may be dealing with if you buy. Simply knock in and say I am thinking of buying next door what do you think of the estate and you will be able to gauge them. I have always done this before buying.

Don't do it.

I live in a private estate and the council bought the house next door to us about 12 years ago. For the first 6 years there was an African woman and her three kids there and they were a pleasure to live beside for the most part.

Then it lay empty for a year before being completely renovated and young traveller family moved in on a temporary basis. They were fine except the guy was a scrap collector so the front and back gardens would be covered in washing machines, lawn mowers, bikes etc. They were there for 3 months and they were always pleasant and not very noisy.

Then it was empty for about 8 months and renovated again. This time another young traveller family who would stay in the house for a few days and then it'd be vacant for 6-10 days. They always had lots of overnight guests when they did stay. There'd be screaming and roaring all night. One day I turned the corner coming home and was met by 5 squad cars clogging the road and about 15 Garda outside their house, something to do with a shoplifting spree. There was an all merciful row one day on the street between the main couple in the house and they moved out the following day.

The house was empty again for most of Covid before being renovated and leased to a well know charity short term. A middle aged woman and her teenage kids moved in. They were pleasant enough if you met them outside but the killings that used to go on there all night were horrendous. Thankfully they weren't there long but they left the house in an absolute state and it's been sitting vacant now for about 6 months. Weeds up to the windows, blinds hanging off inside, a layer of dead flies lining the window sills. In a row of 8 nice, well maintained houses, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

You could get lucky and get great neighbours from the council. I have friends who are council tenants who I'd love to live beside .You could buy beside private and get terrible neighbours. But in MY experience, I would advise against buying next to council.

I would want to know why the house you are buying is for sale, did the owners have a bad experience and move. Why is the house next door empty did something happen?

Op, I very rarely weigh in on threads like this, but felt compelled too as you asked if you do get a bad egg family as LA neighbors, firstly getting them out would be very difficult. Councils have to prove an extremely high burden of proof to obtain an eviction and it can take years and in the end it will be down to a Judge to grant the order.

For example, I live in an multi unit development that has drug dealers and some very violent persons, all LA tenants and after 13 years they still are housed here.

I think you need to seriously weigh it up as sure you could get a lovely neighbor but if you don’t, can you or your family wait and live next to your worst nightmare?

No matter where you buy, the council can buy beside you and lease to anyone on their list.

Some rural, one off houses are being bought around the country so no place is exempt.

Most council tenants are fine but some can ruin a whole area. At least, with a leased house you can put serious pressure on the council to evict problem tenants, not easy but possible.

You could move on to another semi house and find the adjoining house for sale soon after, you have no control over who might buy it.

If a lot of the houses are owned by older people you can expect more sales than in a mixed age estate.

I would probably go on the area and take a chance, you could dither forever..

There's a house down the road from us that was bought by the council a few years ago. The people living there now have a dog in their back garden thats never ever walked and barks continuously all day, I'd literally go insane living beside that. In addition, their front garden is a dumping ground, its like an obstacle course to get to the front door given the amount of junk there. They also have a broken down van and car in the driveway/garden that haven't moved in years. I can only imagine what the house inside and back garden is like.

I feel sorry for the people living next door to them, they'll have a hard time selling if they ever decide they've had enough.

My advice would be not to buy the house at all...........when buying a house you should always think about whether you would ever want to sell the property ..........you won't get the true market value if you have social housing next door......

Hate to say it... And this is only from personal experience (and the particular area I once lived in).

I'd be highly cautious about moving anywhere near social housing. As you pointed out most folks are decent people. But in my case, there were a few rotten families in there too, and they made life for me and my parents a living hell. The Garda could do nothing.

At one point we had an elderly next-door neighbor who passed away. Then we got the family from hell in who were allocated the house.

Snarky? Hardly. You want cast iron guarantees that your future house in a middle income area will be peaceful? You will not get it. The best bet for you is to do an investigation into people who live in the immediate neighbourhood now. Go around, knock on the doors, introduce yourself, ask about neighbours. Hire a private investigator.

You could reject this house and move on to the next one, and a year from now find a neighbour has sold to the council and be right back with the same worries

But you're comparing something that would definitely happen (the OP situation) with something that has a very low probability of happening (the OP finding himself in the same situation again) and you're saying they're the same. They're not. At all.

The idea that living next door to a local authority rental is the same as living next to an owner occupied house is nonsense. It's one thing to chastise the OP for not being politically correct about it but he's the one who has to put a couple of hundred grand into it.

Yes, I have lived next to a place that was privately owned but on a long term lease to the council. I wasn't as lucky as you, let's leave it there.

I wouldn't give the OP any guarantees but if he buys a different house, the odds that the house next door will go up for sale AND that it will be bought by the local council are pretty remote.

And of course, if the OP did buy this house and went to sell in a few years, guess what? Having council tenants next door will seriously hamper the resale value. That's just the reality.

I hate to say it - Walk away

Council bought two houses attached to us in Meath, travellers moved in to one, the other was a single mother with a child and shortly after her partner moved in with a company van and personal car - none of my business really, they were fine but for the other house.... We sold up less than a year later. Won't go into detail but it was an eye opening experience.

Council have since bought a few houses in our current estate and neighbouring estates. One of which, travellers are in it whom have a hobby of collecting old scrap cars up on blocks, fridges, metal and just about anything they can get their hands on. And it's in a right old sorry state. Feel sorry for the neighbours.

Another down the road from us didn't want to pay for their bins to be collected and their backgarden is just stacked high with black sacks of sh!t.