With our 16 new homes at Coombelands Gardens in Addlestone, we are helping families find their way onto the property ladder.
Our newest residents pleased to call Coombelands Gardens their home are the Iliescu family, who moved to the UK from Romania four years ago to follow employment. Mum Anca Iliescu said: “We found a two-bedroom apartment to rent close to our son’s school. It wasn't ideal, but the rent was within our budget.”
Anca and husband Lucian wanted to buy a home in the area but were disheartened by the high value of homes. “We never thought we would be able to buy a house here,” Anca said.
Anca then heard about our new homes. When taking a look while they were being built, the family saw our advertisement for shared ownership and enquired about a two-bedroom house.
At the time, all the houses were reserved, however, the family later received a call from the sales team within Homemade Homes by Accent to say that one had become available again.
Shared Ownership is one of the government’s ‘help to buy’ schemes although not everyone has heard about the scheme. It allows people on a low income to buy shares in a home, which are usually between 25% to 75% of the property's full market value. The shares owned can be increased through a process known as staircasing.
Speaking from their home, the Iliescu family said: “We love our home, never in our wildest dreams did we think we could buy one.”
Accent’s Executive Director of Development, Sales and Homeownership, Sarah Ireland said: “We are delighted to welcome the Iliescu family, and all our new families to Coombelands Gardens, and we hope they enjoy their homes. It is fantastic to see people who would otherwise be priced out of the communities they love being able to afford a home through shared ownership, and being able to stay close to family, friends, employment and support networks.”
“Coombelands Gardens is a significant development for Accent, it reflects the ambitions of our development strategy to build sustainable and affordable homes in area of high need. The new homes, which have been developed in close partnership with Runnymede Borough Council, and our main developers Martin Grant Homes, have been built to a high specification, using modern methods of construction and to meet an energy rating of ‘B’ to offer high levels of energy efficiency and low running costs. Additionally, the Environmental Impact (CO2) Rating is also ‘B’ making the homes very environmentally friendly, producing lower co2 emissions.”
“We have made a further commitment to build all our new homes in our land led programme to an EPC ‘A’ rating to help fight fuel poverty. We currently have around 500 homes on site being built to this standard across the country."
