Uniq Homes

Building unique homes

Robert D’Angelo, Company Director for Uniq Homes, is a carpenter by trade. From there, it was a smooth transition into the building industry – perhaps a little too smooth. In 1993, D’Angelo was building a home for himself on the waterfront, as well as another house next door. He says that someone approached him with an offer to buy his house, which was still under construction – an offer he accepted. After that, he sold the house next door as well. “I ended up telling my wife twice that I’d sold our house,” laughs D’Angelo. “But that spurred us on to setting up the business in ’94 and keep doing it.”

Today, Uniq Homes builds homes for various clients. Their focus is mostly on single, residential homes, but they’re also known to do small commercial work – like warehouses, D’Angelo says – and land development as well. He says they’ve done 5 to 10 subdivisions, “but could do even more if asked”.

For their work, Uniq Homes have won some fairly prestigious awards. In 2008, the Australian Housing Industry Association (HIA) awarded them with a Custom Built Home award. The judges comments that year described their application as a unique home that is “remarkable in its use of Feng Shui principles, modern clean design, and energy efficiency”. “That award is what spurned us on to enter various homes and categories,” D’Angelo says. The next year, in 2009, the HIA honoured Uniq Homes even more, granting them awards for Home of the Year, Kitchen Project of the Year, Bathroom Project of the Year as well as Pool & Outdoor Project of the Year. The judges comments in the Home of the Year award describes Uniq Homes’ product as a “fabulous house” that “surprises and stimulates”, going so far as to call it “a carefully planned and meticulously executed example of fine building work.” “So yeah,” D’Angelo says. “We’ve done some pretty amazing stuff.”

Uniq Homes has been a member of the HIA since the last 90s. “They are an industry body that clients look to for that stamp of approval, so to speak,” D’Angelo says, explaining his relationship with the industry body. “So we can look and say, ‘hey, we’re a member, and a proud member’. It guarantees a certain level of expertise, quality and conduct that we adhere to. So clients feel safe.”

Living up to its name

“Every home we build is a one-off design and construct,” D’Angelo says. “A home designed specifically for people and their land. So we don’t have display homes or anything like that. We work from individual designs.” This business philosophy means that the company has no choice but to look at each home as a new challenge, and design accordingly – what’s right for one home isn’t going to be right for every home. Uniq Homes understands this – it’s right there in the name.

Uniq Homes does their own designs, but they also work from architectural designs that clients bring in. In those cases, D’Angelo says, they will examine the designs, appraise them, give a quote, and build from there. As far as limits go, D’Angelo says they don’t have a lot. Uniq Homes is fairly diverse. “We do everything at all costs of construction,” he says. “We’re not a builder that sticks to one type of construction. We’ve done small investor properties as cheap as 140 grand each. And then we’ve done homes in the three million dollar plus range. So it’s a pretty big gap. The majority sits between one and 1.5 million – that would be our core market focus.”

That three million dollar home they’ve done? D’Angelo admits that’s the one he lives in. “That’s part and parcel of showcasing what you can do,” he says. “Not necessarily with that amount of money, but what you can do when you’ve got a certain plan and a certain end product in mind, and sticking to that core value all the way through.”

Uniq Homes currently does 25 to 30 homes a year, and historically they’ve been happy with that number, even if they can do a couple more. “That’s what we aim to do, and do them properly,” D’Angelo says. “We’re not after huge numbers, we’re not a production builder.” Whom do they make these homes for? All sorts of people, says D’Angelo, with a slight focus on people buying their third home. “We get customers from all walks of life. We get that first homebuyer that mom and dad are helping out, but generally the third or fourth home buyer is our market.”

D’Angelo says that they do a little bit of advertising, but most of their business comes from word of mouth recommendations – he estimates 80 per cent of their business is acquired this way. And he knows satisfaction is high because they get repeat business. For one client, they’ve built three homes. For another, they’ve built five. Also important to Uniq Homes business is families: they’ll build one home, and then they’ll build another for an uncle, then the cousins, and so forth.

In regards to the future of the business, D’Angelo says, “the focus is to shift and become a 30 to 40 home a year builder.” He also says they’ve set up another business which is in its infancy stages called Home Start, geared toward the low-end market. “That will be a company that does subdivisions,” D’Angelo says. He says that Home Start is a little bit out of their usual core market, but that a market is there – and a market for his company specifically. “What was happening is we build a client their 800 thousand, 900 thousand, million dollar home, and a few years later they want to do an investment property and because of the rapport and the relationship they don’t want to go elsewhere.”

What’s unique about Uniq

D’Angelo says that what sets Uniq Homes apart from the competition – particularly their larger competitors – is their speed and professionalism. “For a company that’s main focus is on custom, we are able to compete on certain projects and certain spec levels at that end of town. And because we are still doing low numbers we are able to get them done quite quickly.”

If you have the land ready to go, D’Angelo says that you’re looking at a build time between 18 months to 24 months. Method of construction and the type construction material are the big variables.

As a company, Uniq Homes has about six employees – the rest being subcontractors. For the first 10 years, D’Angelo says it was just himself and his wife. The longest serving employee, D’Angelo says, has been there six years. Recently, they put a carpenter through the apprentice scheme and he’s now training to be a site supervisor. “You’re trying to put people through the industry. If you’re going to have them run your sites, you want them to have a trade basis so they know what they’re on about. That experience is crucial.” And just because he’s training others, doesn’t mean D’Angelo’s stopped being hands-on himself. “As an owner of the company I like doing hands-on work, and know what trades are doing what and who is doing the right thing.”

Like many companies, Uniq Homes has had to weather a troubled economic climate. The housing market, D’Angelo says, has slowed down, and people are taking longer to sell their homes. “The work is still there,” he says. “It’s just taking longer to start.” He estimates business is down 10 to 15 per cent. However, he also says that things are turning around in a big way. “I think we’re the busiest now that we’ve been in the last four years.”

The relationship with tradespeople is a highly valued one for Uniq Homes. “As far as trades go, we have trades that have with us for 10 to 15 years.” In what is perhaps the ultimate compliment, D’Angelo says that the tradespeople he works with often come to Uniq Homes for their housing needs. These are people who work with many homebuilders firsthand, and then make the choice to go with them. If they aren’t informed homebuyers, nobody is. And if Uniq Homes are the best choice for them, they’re probably the best choice for everybody.

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