With lockdown meaning the temporary closure of new homes developments across the country, the ‘virtual tour’ has become an essential part of the house-hunting process, and one that is here to stay.
St Edward kindly invited WhatHouse? to be shown around its Hartland Village development in Hampshire without leaving the comfort of our home office. Jack Traisneau, senior sales executive, kindly met us on Zoom for a personal look around the site.
Throughout the tour, he gave us an overview of the development: “We’re in the infancy of a 15-year project and in the long term, as we get more established, I think this will be a village talked about by many. I don’t think there’s a like-for-like development. It’s a 135-acre brownfield site completely circumvented by woodland and there’s no scope for future construction to spoil the site. On one side, there’s MOD owned land which is green space down to Fleet Pond, and on the northeastern perimeter, we’ve got the country park that we’ve regenerated. The feedback from that has far exceeded expectation.
“In total, there are 10 phases, 1,500 homes, with 700 houses and 500 apartments for private sale and the other 300 units as affordable housing.
“In Phase 1 – Lakeside - we’re delivering 145 private homes. There’s a collection of one- and two-bedroom apartments and three-, four- and five-bedroom houses. We’ve had our first completion this May, with 17 more residents expected to move in by the end of July.
Hartland Manor, Hartland Village
“Hartland Manor – our flagship apartment building – has just launched. It’s based on traditional Georgian design and comprises a total of 24 units over four storeys. These homes form the heart of the first phase and are what residents and visitors see directly in front of them when they cross the beautiful bridge at the southern entrance of the site. All four one-bedroom apartments have already sold, with 10 of the two-bedrooms also reserved.”
The next phases will establish more of the ‘placemaking’ parts of the project, which includes the village green at the heart of the development, which will host many social clubs and events. Phase 2 also delivers the village centre, with 20,000 sq ft of commercial space, to include a village hall and a range of shops and leisure facilities.
Next door to the village centre will be the new primary school and seven acres of sports pitches for the school and community.
Of the country park, Jack explained: “There is an impressive 70 acres of green space. The park will include a bike area for children, play and picnic areas, dog walking paths – a great asset to have for the local community and on the doorstep of our residents. It hasn’t launched yet, but some landscaped footpaths on what we call a ‘woodland trail’ around the perimeter of the development are accessible.”
Heading towards the new apartment Hartland Manor, we passed two symmetrical buildings, Copper Beech House and Redwood House, each with a mix of one- and two-bedroom units.
One of these apartments is a fully furnished show home. We took a look at a four-bedroom show house here earlier this year but now there’s a two-bedroom, two-bathroom, 796-sq-ft apartment. This has been fitted throughout in a contemporary design.
Apartment show home, Hartland Village
Jack explained the range of interiors options ‘early bird’ buyers can choose from. “There are effectively four different types of bathroom and six different types of kitchen – white, stone grey and light grey for both traditional and contemporary themes.
“For each one, we include the engineered timber flooring, carpet, lighting and everything that’s fitted – everything but window dressing, wallpaper, pendant light fittings and furniture. If a buyer wants professional advice on decorating their own home, we can introduce them to an interior designer.”
There’s already been a varied array of house-hunters looking at Hartland Village, he said. “The two five-beds we’ve sold are both local buyers who have recently sold their homes in nearby Farnborough. We’ve had quite a few young families buying three- or four-beds, some moving out of London, some local. We’ve had a lot of first-time buyers, especially with the apartments, as well as downsizers and retirees.
“We’ve seen people who, rather than spending money on an apartment in London can come out here and have a family home and commute easily – we have a free shuttle service to Fleet station for the first occupants here to tailor to that.
“The recent desire for a home office has made these homes more attractive too – many of our homes benefit from studies or extra bedrooms which can be converted into work space. People are looking for more space and a less densely populated area.”
Jack and the team are available here for socially-distanced appointment-only visits between 10.00am and 6.00pm seven days a week and also host very thorough online meetings too.
“At the moment, rather than going to the sales and marketing suite, we can take them outside for a full presentation on the decking, sitting out over the lake and water feature. We currently do virtual appointments via Zoom meetings, sharing the screen and doing a very similar presentation to what we’d do in the sales and marketing suite, with a slide-by-slide presentation and virtual tours we have created. They’ve been a great success for us.”
Find out more about Hartland Village from St Edward.
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