Twenty years ago, two colleagues looked at how houses in Australia were being built and decided the process could use some refining.
Pasquale “Pas” Garofalo and Charles Agius met while working together at a builder where Mr Garofalo was head of estimating and Mr Agius was looking after sales.
Identifying that each had a passion for the product they were delivering – and an interest in the question of how to make homebuilding accessible for people in their home state of Victoria – they struck up a friendship.
Pasquale “Pas” Garofalo and Charles Agius are the founders of AHB Group, which is celebrating 20 years in business. Image: AHB Group
“We worked really closely together for a good two or three years,” Mr Garofalo explained.
It wasn’t long before they began to share ideas about how the model for home building could change.
“We saw a need for something bit different from where we were currently working, and had a drive to start our own business, where we could add an extra element of service and personability.
“We identified that we wanted to bring strong pricing to good quality homes with a very efficient delivery," he said.
Mr Garofalo started the business first, with Mr Agius joining a few months later.
Their sell to customers, they decided, would be simple, as Mr Agius explained.
“It’s about delivering a quality home, at an affordable price, in a timely manner,” he said, outlining the business’s three core principles.
The Fairway 331 Homestead Collection from Sherridon Homes. Image: Sherridon Homes
But while it’s easy to say, delivering on those promises is not so simple to do. Their new business would have to find a method of operation to make the equation work.
“We understood that the older way of doing work was really clunky and inefficient. So we thought we would operate with a fixed price that’s set and forget. Traditionally you would design a home, lay a price on top, and go back and forth a million times [with the client]. We had a one-price fits model, delivering on that from start to finish.”
In their first business plan, written on a cocktail napkin, they decided that to make it work, they’d have to build 20 homes in the first year of operation, while doing a handful of specs themselves.
They did not anticipate just how popular their proposition would be. In their first 12 months Mr Garofalo and Mr Agius along with a small handful of staff delivered five times that volume, building 100 homes for Victorians under a company that was then called Abey Homes.
Realising that they had a product with wide appeal on their hands, the duo began to lay out a roadmap for the future, establishing AHB Group as a company to oversee multiple brands that would offer different products tailored to different cohorts of buyers.
And having discovered that another Australian company (primarily a manufacturer of sinks and vanities) shared the name Abey, they transitioned that first offering into Royston Homes, which is now well-known across Victoria for its turnkey house-and-land packages.
AHB group celebrates 20 years in operation in 2025, marking the date from when they first established Abey, which kicked off an entity that has grown into a giant in the Australian building industry as the second largest builder in Victoria, where it maintains its focus. And though they’re exclusively a Victorian company, their dominance in the state makes them roughly the sixth largest builder in the nation.
An interior of a home by AHB Group's Sherridon Homes. Image: Sherridon Homes
Now, the banner of AHB Group includes a dozen different brands.
While Royston Homes is now a wholesale channel tailored to investors, Sherridon Homes offers family home packages across Melbourne and Victoria’s other major cities, and First Place caters to first-home buyers. Marque, meanwhile, is the group’s luxury offer, while SOHO Living builds high-end communities that encompass townhomes as well as houses.
Across the other brands, not all of AHB’s businesses are homebuilders, but they all serve the cause of delivering on the company’s three core pillars.
Inotek Timber Systems offers precision engineered trusses and frames to the Australian residential and commercial construction industries. Gallerie is an interior design showroom and service that guides customers through the process of selecting finishes. Accurate Construction Services provides design, estimation, and procurement resources to small and medium-sized builders.
As Mr Agius explained, the expansion into other aspects of the industry was not about growth for growth’s sake, but rather the strategy of optimising price for customers.
“We believe the more we can control, the more the better the pricing we can deliver. For example, owning a business that manufactures wall frames and trusses, we can release them to market at the best price.”
It’s these expansions and changes in strategy that have allowed the firm to continue to deliver what they consider to be those core principles: a quality home, at an affordable price, in a timely manner.
AHB has grown to be the second largest builder in Victoria.
Of course, over their two decades of operation, external factors have changed that equation.
Both Mr Garofalo and Mr Agius cite changes in red tape within the building process for having more than doubled the time it takes between a contract being signed and starting work on a buyer’s new house. Their promise of delivering in “a timely manner” has been put under pressure accordingly.
And the supply chain issues brought on by COVID were a challenge the duo say they are just grateful to have survived.
In fact, they call it their greatest achievement. That, and the fact that after 20 years they are still having fun.
“If you aren't having any fun doing this, you’re not enjoying doing the business, what’s the point?” Mr Agius asked.
Clearly the point is still alive and well for Mr Garofalo and Mr Agius who say the next phase for AHB group is “the next 20 years”.
Are you interested in learning more about options for home building? Check out our dedicated New Homes section.
English (US) · 