Barry Plant Brings On Projects Division

“I started in off-the-plan and have built my entire career in that space,” said Jarrod Farey.

That path took him through senior roles with several major brands before he made the leap and launched his own business, Farey and Co, just before COVID. Now, after five years building his own brand, Farey is bringing that business into Barry Plant, and with it a level of projects expertise that marks a significant new chapter for the network.

“Recently I’ve taken the time to think seriously about the future, what matters most to me and where I wanted to take the business,” Farey said. “I’ve always been driven to build something bigger, and joining Barry Plant provides me that opportunity.”

That ambition, he said, was central to the move.

“I’m excited about the scale, reach and impact of the Barry Plant network, its brand, the depth of its talent, the breadth of its business - and the opportunity all this provides for future growth.” he said.

“That’s why some diversification is important. Having residential sales, property management, auctioneering and other services alongside the projects business creates stronger support and a more sustainable foundation for growth.”

For Barry Plant, the significance of this move goes far beyond one respected operator joining the network. It represents the arrival of a specialist projects business with deep experience across high and medium-density development, townhouse sites and off-the-plan sales, a capability that has the potential to open up entirely new growth opportunities across the group.

Farey’s credentials in that space are substantial. At another major real estate network, he helped build a projects division from the ground up.

“When I joined, there was very little structure around projects, so I helped build the division from the ground up,” he said. “Within 15 months, we grew from a team of two to 17.”

He went on to secure major listings, including a 101-apartment development in Ringwood and a 200-apartment project in Hawthorn.

“That success really put us on the map and showed what we were capable of,” he said.

That track record continued after launching Farey and Co. While many would have expected opening a new business on the eve of a global pandemic to be difficult, Farey said the opposite proved true.

“They were probably our biggest two years,” he said. “We listed and launched five developments during that period, all at once, so it was an incredibly successful time.”

What drew him to Barry Plant was not just scale, but alignment of culture and purpose.

“After my first meeting with Lisa Pennell, I felt I’d found someone I could genuinely align with on a personal level,” he said. “That was incredibly important to me.”

He said that feeling only strengthened as discussions continued.

“It became clear very quickly, through Lisa, Ben Burling and the wider team, that this was a very different environment,” he said. “When you’ve experienced other cultures, that difference really stands out.”

Barry Plant CEO Lisa Pennell said now is the right time for the group to launch a projects division, with Jarrod the right person to be leading the way.

“We had been working hard to transform the brand for a couple of years, so it was a real reflection of that progress when Jarrod first reached out to me to express his interest in potentially joining Barry Plant, particularly given the rapidly expanding opportunity in the projects space across Victoria.”

“Jarrod is a highly experienced projects specialist with a strong track record of success in Melbourne. I was genuinely delighted when we first sat down and realised we had true alignment in both values and goals, and it reinforces to us that we are attracting the right calibre of people to our network.”

“At Barry Plant, culture matters as much as performance. We are not interested in bringing in just anyone, and Jarrod is exactly the kind of person we want in the business. He brings the expertise, values and leadership to make Barry Plant Projects a success, and I am excited to see what we can achieve together.”

That cultural fit matters, as does the strategic opportunity.

Farey believes the projects market is evolving. Buyers are more informed, the sales cycle is longer, and the large-scale apartment market remains complex.

“Buyers are far more informed than they’ve ever been,” he said. “They have so much information at their fingertips.”

“What used to be a two or three-day journey from lead to sale is now a much longer nurture process.”

He also sees Barry Plant’s broad footprint as a major advantage in the next phase of the market.

“I can see the market moving further into more regional and outer-metro areas, and that’s where leveraging the strength of the network will be incredibly important,” he said.

That is where this move becomes especially powerful. Barry Plant is not simply welcoming an experienced projects specialist. It is adding a dedicated projects business that can support developers across a range of opportunities, from boutique townhouse projects through to much larger developments. Farey said the network’s scale will immediately strengthen that offer.

“Being able to say, hand on heart, that we have a network of around 70 offices behind every project gives developers a level of confidence that a smaller business simply can’t match,” he said.

He also sees the support structure within Barry Plant as a genuine point of difference.

“We also have the backing of an internal marketing team, which is something I haven’t had before,” he said. “There are plenty of people who can step in and support the business when needed.”

Looking ahead, Farey is already preparing for major opportunities, including a future project of between 280 and 330 apartments. But beyond any single development, the bigger story is the platform now being built inside Barry Plant.

“We’ve built something that can genuinely help developers and put them in the strongest possible position to sell,” he said.

For Farey, the move is a natural next step in a career spent mastering the projects space. For Barry Plant, it is a major strategic addition, bringing specialist projects capability into the network in a far more focused and meaningful way than ever before. And for developers, it signals something new: the backing of a trusted brand, combined with the leadership of a projects specialist who has spent more than two decades at the coalface of the market.