The succedent houses are the second, fifth, eighth and eleventh, each following an angle in the order in which the signs rise. The Greek name is epanaphorai, the risings after, and it is descriptive rather than evaluative: these are the places that come up behind the pivots.
The character the tradition assigns them is consolidation. Where an angular house is where something happens, a succedent house is where the result of it is kept. The second holds the money and moveable goods that follow from a life. The fifth holds the issue, children and pleasure, that follows from a household. The eighth holds what passes when the other party is gone, the legacies, the dowry and the goods of the dead. The eleventh holds the friends, the hopes and the support that follow from a standing in the world.
In strength the group sits in the middle. A planet in a succedent house is neither as forceful as one on an angle nor as weak as one in a cadent place, and the tradition treats it as effective but slower to show. That middle position is the practical reason the group is worth knowing: a chart with no angular planets at all is not a chart with nothing to say, and its succedent placements are where a reading goes next.
Two of the four carry planetary joys, Venus in the fifth and Jupiter in the eleventh, which are also the two places that see the ascendant by a favourable aspect.