New home at The Quadrant is a ‘dream come true’ for Catalina and Alin

Having spent £28,000 on rent over the last five years, Catalina and Alin State were desperate to buy a house of their own. And now, three years after they first fell in love with the Ledbury home at Chestnut Homes’ The Quadrant development in Boston, the couple’s dream has finally come true, all thanks to Help to Buy.

After the relatives who Catalina and Alin were sharing a rented home with decided to move back to Romania, the couple found themselves at a crossroads – should they continue renting or buy a place of their own?Unsure if they would have enough money to put down a deposit, they visited The Quadrant and to their surprise found that the home they had fallen in love with in 2017 was not only for sale, but ready to move into right away.

“It was like fate,” said Catalina, 39, who works as a quality auditor in Boston. “In 2017, we visited the development for the first time and started the first steps of the moving process. The Ledbury stuck out to us, but at that time we didn’t have enough money for the deposit, and we had to give up. I have been hoping to move there ever since. “We had been living with some of my cousins in a four-bedroom terrace house about three miles away. Earlier this year my cousins decided to return to Romania, and we had to decide if we would continue renting or if we would buy our own home. “In the last five years we have spent £28,000 on rent, and that’s excluding the bills. In the end, we felt that there was no point in continuing to move every few years. We wanted somewhere that was ours.”

The couple went back to The Quadrant in May and purchased their very own three-bedroom detached Ledbury home for £227,500. Using the Government-backed Help to Buy scheme, the couple put down a deposit of just under £12,000.

Help to Buy is an initiative to help buyers of new-build homes onto or up the property ladder. With the scheme buyers require just a five per cent deposit and a 75 per cent mortgage on their new home. The remaining 20 per cent is provided by an equity loan that is interest free for the first five years.

Catalina said: “Using Help to Buy was so important to helping us buy this home – we wouldn’t have been able to buy without it. “Chestnut Homes kept everything moving along nicely. We didn’t even have to press the solicitors or ask how things were going; they kept us informed throughout the whole process. This is a dream come true. It has been really emotional.”

Since moving in at the beginning of August, Catalina and Alin have fallen in love with The Quadrant. Catalina said: “We love it here. It’s very quiet and our neighbours are really nice. The whole area is very peaceful. Compared to where we lived before there is no traffic and much less noise. We see ourselves living in this house for a very long time.”