Family Find Quality, Space And Saving In Lenham

After spending over £60,000 on renting over the last five years, a young family from Kent have purchased their dream home in their ideal location.

Andreea and Bogdan Boiciuc, along with their three-year-old daughter Serena, swapped renting a two-bedroom semi-detached house in Gillingham for their own brand new three-bedroom home in the market village of Lenham.

The family were impressed with the spacious design and quality craftsmanship that Jones Homes’ Westwood Park development had to offer and quickly reserved their home on the site off Ham Lane shortly after their first visit.

Andreea, 31, who works as an office administrator in Chatham, said: “We had our heart set on buying a place of our own and had saved up a deposit to potentially put down on an older home, but because of the pandemic, a 10% deposit wasn’t enough to get a mortgage at that time. However, thanks to Help to Buy, we were able to put down just a 5% deposit on a brand new home. 

“When we started looking last year, we visited a few new home developments in the area, but the houses wouldn’t have been ready for months, and we wanted to move much sooner than that. Then we found Westwood Park. I liked the look of it online and registered our interest. After we’d received a call from the sales advisor asking if we’d like to visit, we went and absolutely loved it. The next day, we spoke to our mortgage advisors and went back and reserved our home. And three months later, we were moving in.”

The Help to Buy scheme allows first-time buyers to put down a 5% deposit with just a 75% mortgage. The remaining 20% is provided through a government-backed equity loan which is interest-free for the first five years. Buyers in the South East can purchase a home priced up to £437,600 with Help to Buy.

While no more homes at Westwood Park are available under the scheme, there will soon be selection of new three-bedroom homes available to purchase with Help to Buy at Jones Homes’ Walnut Grange development in Hoo St Werburgh.  

On Andreea and Bogdan’s wish list when looking for a new home was that it would be big enough for their family, allow them to entertain guests, and be located somewhere with good schools and plenty of green, open spaces. She said: “When I started looking online, I identified Lenham quickly as a very good place to live. It is a lovely village, and in the last few months, it has already started to feel like my home.

“Buying new costs much less than renting. Before, we were paying £1,000 a month for our two-bedroom semi-detached house in Gillingham; now our mortgage is just £900 a month for a much bigger home. There is also something nice about knowing that you are paying towards your own home and not someone else’s. We rented our old house for five years, spending over £60,000 in rent in that time.

“To be honest, we didn’t even think about buying new at first. It wasn’t until we started to consider the lower deposit price with Help to Buy that we began considering the benefits of buying a new build home and fell in love with Westwood Park.

“We were impressed with the quality at the development from the start. Inside the show home, I could see that Jones Homes had put a lot of effort into the design and specification. My husband works in the construction industry, so he knew what to look out for in terms of quality craftsmanship. We chose the ‘Ashby’ because of the open-plan downstairs, which is not only great for Serena when playing but also for if we host guests. Our old home had lots of rooms and walls, so it was nice to find somewhere open with lots of space to entertain.”

A selection of four- and five-bedroom homes are currently available to purchase at Westwood Park, with prices from £460,000. Jones Homes is also about to release a selection of three and four-bedroom homes for sale at Walnut Grange in Hoo St Werburgh, some of which will be available to purchase with the Help to Buy scheme. Find out more at jones-homes.co.uk.

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