Remote Reservation To A New Home in East Lothian

A housebuilder’s bespoke scheme for ‘virtual house-hunting’ has helped a family secure an ideal five-bedroom home in Haddington, East Lothian.

CALA Homes introduced its Remote Reservation initiative soon after the start of lockdown. This means that from the comfort of their current property, people looking for a new home can use a wealth of online video and virtual tours to start and continue their search, and explore a range of homes and apartments across the region without having to go onsite. Backing this up is a sales team which is available daily to discuss any of its homes with buyers.

Rachel McCabe was one such purchaser and has recently used the Remote Reservation service to secure her dream home, CALA’s five-bedroom ‘The Melville’ house type, at their Letham Views development in Haddington.

She is moving from Bonnyrigg in Midlothian and said: “I completely fell in love with ‘The Melville’, and was determined it would be my next home. When I saw the last one was available at Letham Views, I was panicking that the current situation would make it really hard to see a move through, but CALA’s Remote Reservation service allowed me to secure my dream family home.”

Philip Hogg, sales and marketing director with CALA Homes (East), commented: “Like everyone else, we weren't sure what to expect as we headed into lockdown. It felt very uncertain and we simply did not know if buyers who were considering moving home would wish to continue. Launching our Remote Reservation service was something we felt we could do to offer a little bit of certainty to those still needing to move.

“It's really important to us that, as we return to a new normality, we do so in a way that always supports our customers and staff safely.”

Reservation fees made through the service are fully refundable, to offer an extra level of reassurance.

The Remote Reservation scheme wasn’t the only one that assisted Rachel in purchasing the home she wanted.

“I used their Part Exchange offer too – all of which was done remotely. I helped an estate agent to carry out a virtual viewing of our old home – it was very strange, but fully possible thanks to amazing technology.”

CALA has found that many buyers reserving in recent weeks are opting to use its Part Exchange initiative which has remained available, as has their Guaranteed Buyer service. Guaranteed Buyer sees the developer step in with a ‘cash offer’, while allowing the seller to test the market, safe in the knowledge of having a secure back-up.

Philip added: “At the moment, we just want to give buyers like Rachel some certainty and some comfort. People are justifiably nervous and are worrying about things like being able to safely sell their homes.

“That's where we think our services that you can use in tandem with Remote Reservations, such as our Guaranteed Buyer and Part Exchange services, will become a vital lifeline in making a move happen.”

Find out more at www.cala.co.uk.

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