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Making dream homes come true

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At Barbaro Homes, “it’s never about volume, it’s always about value.” Director Joseph Barbaro believes that every home he builds, no matter the size, should be original, luxurious, and in line with the client’s dream. He founded the company with those values and he will never deviate from them.

Making dream homes come true

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CLIENTS COME FIRST

“We’re passionate about what we do, and we’re committed to our clients,” Joseph says. “We don’t look at the number of homes we build, we look at the value. And delivering value means delivering quality and client sat-isfaction.” Prior to starting Barbaro Homes, Joseph earned more than 15 years of experience in the industry with a number of different com-panies. He started while he was still at school, working with up-market cabinet-makers. He graduated to a cabinet making appren-ticeship, and later worked as a “brickie’s la-

bourer.” This was all before “being thrown into the deep end as a supervisor with one of Perth’s leading project builders.” “Over the course of my career, I experi-enced how things tended to be done in the industry, and I was always thinking about how I could improve things,” he says. “I’m a self-confessed perfectionist, and I’ve always pushed myself to ‘do it better.’” Four years ago, Joseph decided the best way to “do it better” – and to offer clients a superior experience compared to what they were used to – was to start up a company of

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his own. “Barbaro Homes is the culmination of my life’s dream to turn other people’s dreams of their ultimate home into a bricks and mortar reality,” he says.

Today, Barbaro Homes mainly works in the Perth metropolitan area, roughly from Mandurah to Yanchep, and the majority of their work is valued at $500,000 and up. Jo-seph describes that market as their niche, and says most of their clients are third or fourth home buyers who are ready to invest in their “dream home.”

According to Joseph, Barbaro Homes purposely limits the amount of work they do in order to make sure they are devoting their maximum attention to each project. Because of that, they can listen each client carefully, discover exactly what they want, and then channel all the team’s expertise and experi-ence into delivering it. Throughout the building process, the team at Barbaro Homes also operates with honesty and integrity at all times. Joseph says those values are more important to them than profit margins. “That is what makes us different from others,” he says. “We’re a business, and we

CLIENTS COME FIRST

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GOING THE EXTRA MILE

need to make a profit to survive, but client satisfaction still comes first.” Joseph is personally involved with each and every project Barbaro Homes takes on. When they have a preliminary meeting with a client, clients receive his business card with his mobile number on it, and they have di-rect access to him at every stage. He also visits sites regularly to keep a direct eye on what’s going on and make sure work is progressing in accordance with the client’s vision. “We aim to build relationships with cli-ents,” he says. “For us, building a relationship

is just as important as building a home.” As a small boutique builder, Barbaro Homes is flexible, and can start building that relationship at any stage of the process. Cli-ents can come to them with everything from a blank sheet of paper to a completed design. Either way, Joseph likes to start with an in-formal meeting where the client can meet him and his staff, and make sure they feel comfortable with each other. “At the end of the day, we’re here to build a relationship with our client,” he reiterates. “Building a house is the most expensive un-

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GOING THE EXTRA MILE

dertaking that most of our client’s will ever pursue, and it can be very stressful. We want to make sure they’re happy with the people they’re dealing with.” From there, the experienced and dedi-cated team at Barbaro Homes will sit down with clients and work together to finalise a plan that lives up to the client’s dream while also meeting their budget. When work later commences, Barbaro Homes’ team remains in constant contact with clients, offering up-dates and answering any questions they may have.

“During the build, issues will sometimes arise,” Joseph says. “That’s part of building. It’s not perfect and no one in the building industry could ever say they are perfect. But we aim for perfection, and we aim to get as close as we possibly can. So if a problem does arise, I will pick up the phone and call the client. I’ll tell them ‘This is the situation, this is how we’re going to rectify it for you, and are you happy with that? If you are, great.If you’re not, we’ll sit down and resolve it an-other way.’” That ethical approach – combined with

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AWARD RECOGNISED

STRIVING TO BE THE BEST

their high quality results – has earned Bar-baro Homes a consistent stream of referrals and customer testimonials. “All our work is generated by word-of-mouth,” Joseph says. “And to date, we are still in contact with essentially every client we’ve ever built for. I’ve been back numerous times to have a cup of coffee with most of our clients, if not all of our clients. The fact that we’ve stayed in touch is a testament to our philosophy of building a relationship as well as a home.”

Barbaro Homes’ high quality of work has not only been recognised by customers – it’s also been recognised by industry bodies such as the MBA. At the 2014 Master Builders’ National Awards, for example, the company received the National Alterations / Addi-tions Award in the $150,000 to $350,000 category. “We’re very proud to be a part of the MBA, so to be recognised by them gives us a great sense of satisfaction,” Joseph says. “It shows us that what we’re doing is right, and the effort we’re putting in is not going un-

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noticed.” “It’s not the be-all and end-al for us,” he adds. “The be-all and end-all for us client sat-isfaction – that’s what drives us and makes the business tick – but to get that kind of ex-tra accolade is very rewarding.” The 2014 award-winning home – which previously won the $250,000 to $300,000 alterations and additions category in WA’s Housing Excellence Awards earlier that year – is located on Woodrow Avenue in Dianel-la. Prior to Barbaro Homes’ involvement, it had been badly damaged in a fire and was in

need of serious refurbishment. Barbaro Homes ended up transforming the burnt out area from a series of pokey rooms, including a dining room, kitchen, and living area, which opened onto a nine square metre alfresco area. The completed renovation saw an open plan living, dining, and kitchen area with tri-slider doors flowing through to a fully tiled alfresco area about three times the size of the previous arrange-ment. It also included a built in barbeque, sink, hotplate, range-hood, storage cabinets, and a server window from the kitchen.

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“Initially, that was a home we didn’t really want to get involved in,” Joseph recalls. “We don’t normally touch renovations, but my heart went out to those clients. Their home had been burnt down while they were sleep-ing upstairs at the time. They were lucky to be alive by the end of it.” “The insurance company came along and offered to repair it for a certain value,” he continues. “They asked if they could rectify it – or even make it better – for that value. I decided we should look and see how we could help out. We ended up with a very high quality product, and the clients were

very appreciative of the result.” Joseph credits the award-winning high quality of workmanship – on that project and all others – to the hard work and talent of the company’s subcontractors and suppli-ers. “We have a fantastic relationship with everyone we work with,” he says. “Roughly 90 per cent of those relationships have been built over all the years I’ve been in the game, and our mutual respect shows in the service we receive from them. We get looked after very well.” “If we didn’t have longstanding relation-

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ships with subcontractors, we’d have to con-stantly retrain them to produce the level of quality we set out to produce,” he explains. “Since we do have a longstanding team – since most of our relationships date back to previous companies myself and my supervi-sors have worked for – everyone knows the expectation they have to live up to. They know our values, and they know what we stand for, and they stand for the same thing. We can trust what they’re producing for us.” “At the end of the day, we can be the best builder in Perth, but without our subbies, we’re nothing,” he says. “The skill and dedi-

cation of our subcontractors is definitely the key to producing the quality of work we pro-duce.” In the future, Joseph hopes to maintain those close-knit relationships that have made Barbaro Homes the success story it is. “Our consistency comes from our whole company,” he says. “I started the company with my own vision, but our core team has really taken that vision and run with it. Our consistency of quality, service, and client sat-isfaction is a result of our teamwork. We all have the same passion for the same goal.”

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