98 | BUILDING Navigation Homes - BOP Growth the aim for Greg’s team Navigation Homes new show-home at Omokoroa is being built at 20 Ridge Road. Sue Russell The new owner of Navigation Homes BOP, Greg Steele, is looking forwrad to helping the business grow. “I saw great potential when buying the business. The previous owner had run it as an owner operator model and built 8 – 10 houses each year. He was happy to keep it small and build quality homes but only focussed on the Lakes and West Tauranga. Navigation Homes is also a national house building franchise with the head office in Pukekohe and the Counties franchise is the leading builder in the area. I looked at the existing model, the franchise system and support network and saw the potential to grow the business into the East of Tauranga and BOP,” Greg explains. The aspiration then and now is to build 20 – 30 homes a year and while Greg hasn’t been involved in the housing sector before leading Navigation Homes BOP, as a former electrician and professional, he feels he is well positioned to meet that goal. “Over the course of my career, I have acquired extensive leadership and management experience combined with key technical knowledge in a wide spectrum of engineering operations, and project management.” From starting as an electrician Greg became a project manager and built complex high voltage projects like sub-stations. This led him to managing the Tauranga and Western Bay 3 Waters Maintenance Contract. Had Greg stayed on that pathway it would have involved a lot of travel away from home and with a young family he wasn’t prepared to do that. Then the opportunity to buy Navigation Homes came up. “The favourite parts of my career have been where my work has been able to give back to the community. That is the driver of what has put me on this pathway in the housing industry. I hope to be able to build a business that supports our community in providing homes designed to suite the section, the new owners needs and wants with an award winning quality.” Greg acknowledges that right now the market isn’t booming at the moment. Bank funding requirements are tight while material supply delays and cost increases have created uncertainty in the housing market. He predicts the market environment will improve as he believes it has hit its lowest point and confidence will increase over the next six months into summer. “Ultimately, we still have a housing shortage and the BOP is a growing and great place to live.” As he puts it ‘I’ve gone into this business with my eyes open’. Working part-time as a project manager provides financial security for his family and enables him to chase his dream working on the Navigation BOP business. Greg is planning to build town-houses, medium density homes and complete renovations as well as house and land packages . “To be successful and achieve your longterm goals you have to have some contingencies in place and explore every opportunity to get there.” Omokoroa, just north west of Tauranga, has developed hugely in recent years and has a lot more growth planned, supported by new roading infrastructure announced recently by the government, making it the ideal place for the show-home. “Our new show-home is being built at 20 Ridge Road in a hub of Showhomes by other builders. “Our show-home is a really unique style. There are a couple of features to it that really appeal to me, including a great indoor outdoor flow alfresco area with seamless ranch sliders out to a deck, and then there’s a unique feature garden in the middle of the house.” Greg says the main purpose of the new show home is to display the Navigation spec for visitors to see in context. “The flat-pitch ceiling has quite a high stud giving really great views out the back of the house. It’s a really quality offering. This is not an up-spec’d model, this is what we build.” Greg says, having taken over an existing business, he’s benefitted from a really strong team of trade partners. “This team have won four Master Builder ‘House of the Year’ awards. My plan is to continue with the strong relationship with these partners and expand from that base. These are exciting times.” All Navigation Homes offer a range of benefits for owners, including a 365 maintenance guarantee, 10-year Master Builder guarantee along with a 50-year structural guarantee. Navigation Homes has been building homes for over 15 years and there are currently 12 franchises spread across the country. Proudly associatedwith NavigationHomesBOP
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDc2Mzg=