As a boy at primary school, Barry Trass says he loved to build – tree houses and trolleys were among his first construction projects. By the time he left school, he also had a small runabout to his credit.

Now he and wife Jenny own and manage Homeworld, a company which builds about 100 new houses in Northland each year. The couple are also major shareholders in the company which has carried out some of the most significant large-scale subdivisions in the Whangarei district. And the current family boat is a good deal more luxurious as well – a $2 million, 16-metre power catamaran berthed at Tutukaka.

“Opportunities are there for everyone.” Barry says. “You have just got to get out there and take a bit of a risk, and don’t let anything stand in your way.

“I have always admired people who have done well and I just wanted to prove that I could do it – not just for the money, but to be able to say I had done it. And there’s a bit of excitement involved as well.”

Barry’s first step into business came about when his employer – with which he had completed his apprenticeship and gone on to become a construction supervisor – went out of business. “We had recently been married and didn’t have any money, but I had a super scheme with $7000 in it. One of the other employees had about the same amount, so we put our money together and started up Nu Way Homes Ltd.”
That company was one of the forerunners of Homeworld, which was launched in 1992.

Along the way, the business has been involved in just about every major trend in housing – from its early days building houses for the oil refinery expansion project and Government-assisted low-cost housing schemes, to inner-city housing, retirement villages, the demand for lifestyle and coastal properties, and gated communities.

Homeworld’s high-profile showhome village in Whangarei’s Western Hills Drive helped to bring together four different companies,  each of which previously had its own branding and area of specialisation.

“We haven’t looked back since then,” says Barry. “This village has been a huge asset for us. It’s a prime position and we don’t need to do a lot of advertising – we also get a lot of word-of-mouth referrals from satisfied clients.”

Although Homeworld still offers standard plans, most of its work is design-and-build and the company has five architectural designers as part of a sizeable team. “It’s a pretty big crew here and we can produce houses as fast as anyone else. We’ve got a really good team and we look after our staff. A lot of our builders and staff have been here 10 years or more.”

Land development is now a big part of Homeworld’s business. The company buys older homes on large sections in the inner city and shifts them off, then develops townhouses on the sites.

Homeworld is also two-thirds of the way through the 200-house Falls Estate retirement village, which has its own community centre, indoor pool and dining room.

A separate company handles large-scale subdivisions, including The Moorings at Ngunguru, the Anchorage and Marina Village at Tutukaka, Pukenui Estate at Maunu and another community in the Whau Valley area.

With other partners, Barry and Jenny have a shareholding in a coastal subdivision at Waipukurau, south of Napier, as well as interests in non-property ventures.

Not every undertaking has been a success, however – Barry is forthright about the demise of a Whitianga-based boatbuilding operation, which closed down after a fall in the value of the US dollar caused a number of orders to be withdrawn.

The couple have been married 35 years and have raised three daughters. “We’ve had a good life – we’ve had nice properties and been to a lot of countries,” says Barry. “From time to time, we have thought maybe we should move somewhere else but when you travel around, there’s a lot of nice places in the world but you really can’t beat what we have in Northland if you like the boating and beach life as much as we do.

“People underrate Whangarei. It’s a fantastic place to live and do business – it’s got beautiful beaches, it’s reasonably close to Auckland and the climate is very good.

“I think it is on the verge of a huge growth spurt and people won’t know the place in 10 years.”