Jordan & Isobel

Buying your first home can be daunting, so we’re delighted that first-time buyers Jordan and Isobel are settled in their four-bed home in our newest neighbourhood – Welbeck Gardens in Bolsover.

Here Jordan shares the moment they knew it was ‘the one’, and how their new neighbourhood has turned their view of new-builds upside down.

Both Isobel and I grew up in old Victorian homes, so it was never really on the cards to buy a new build home – I think we both thought the stereotype was that they lacked character and wouldn’t appeal to us. However that all changed when we visited the show home at Welbeck Gardens – in short, we were blown away.

We’d been living with parents in the run up, getting ready to take the plunge and buy our first home together. I’m pretty familiar with the area as I grew up in Mansfield, about 20 minutes away, whereas Isobel has mainly lived in London.

A friend of ours has a shop opposite Wilsons, the estate agent, and told us about the new development in Bolsover. Next thing we knew, we were looking at the brochure and spontaneously went to look – just as the show home was opening!

It’s funny how things align – we spoke to Alicia at Forge and she told us there was a house available – which at this stage was half-built – that could suit us. What can I say – we now live here!

It’s amazing, and we could see on this visit how fantastic it would be to live here – we were both struck with how light it was which was really important to us – we both grew up in older properties with huge windows and lots of natural light, this isn’t something we expected to get with a new build property – it couldn’t have been further from the truth!

It also disproved all of our misconceptions about new-build neighbourhoods – far from being generic small spaces that all look the same, our home has beautiful unique brickwork, large windows which allow the light to flood in, and spacious rooms for us and our two cats – Boo and Dolly. The homes here aren’t identical; they all have something about them, giving them loads of personality – a world away from new-builds you might have seen even ten years ago.

I knew Isobel was invested as soon as Alicia got us to picture a Christmas tree in the bay window (and we can confirm it looked as great as we imagined!). We moved in on the 7th of November after our first visit to the show home in August, and the tree was ordered and in place shortly after!

There’s very little for us to do except put our personal stamp on it. We’ve started to choose pictures and get them on the walls to make it really feel like ours, and the blinds are being fitted this week.

At first I wasn’t sure if the kitchen was what we would have chosen – and also, we were used to gas, but the transition to electric has been seamless and our initial thoughts about the kitchen have completely changed now we live here. It’s perfect for the space, the floors are incredible quality and we’re really appreciating the way it’s been designed so carefully. That goes throughout the whole home – everything is of such good quality, we’re really happy being here.

We’ve never bought a home before, so we have no experience to compare ours to, but all I can say is that the Forge team has been incredibly supportive from start to finish. They have a real understanding of the whole process and were brilliant in helping us get it over the line with mortgages and everything else that comes with buying your first home.

They worked with us and were always really helpful and responsive. We dealt with Toby and Matt – and because the scheme is still being completed, we got to see a bit of the contractors and builders as well! We’re also really grateful to our broker Nicky, who was fantastic and helped us get everything over the line so quickly and supported our conversations with Forge.

Andy, Forge’s MD, popped in last week to see how we were getting on, which was really nice, and we’ve now got neighbours either side of us which is lovely. We already love it here and that’s before everyone has moved in. We’re really looking forward to immersing ourselves in the community; Bolsover is charming and we’ve already visited the castle and are planning to go to the lantern parade. It’s a great place and has everything we could possibly need. I commute to Leeds a lot and I can get on the M1 in ten minutes, which is very convenient.

We’re feeling really settled, and now the blinds have been fitted, we’ve been able to move the cats in – we wanted to get everything sorted first as they are old so want them to settle quickly. I’m sure they’ll love their new home as much as we do.