Meet our
Co-Creators
We’re on a mission to bring together people who understand the value of investing in property and working collaboratively to help each other prosper
We’re focused on growing our community for our members where anyone from first time property owners to seasoned investors work together to help each other keep safe, learn, share and build up each other’s knowledge about investing in property
Armin Morrison
Armin commenced her property career in her early twenties in Queensland, Australia. She carved out a successful career as a licensed real estate agent for over 10 years before going on to complete a Bachelor degree in Business followed by an MBA before entering the corporate world working with a large Australasian company and rapidly finding herself in the executive leadership team.
I bought my first property with my partner in 1986 when interest rates were around 18% and rising!
These days we like investing in commercial which weʼve added to our residential portfolio and along the way we have renovated and flipped 30+ homes. Iʼm also very fortunate to have been surrounded by a lot of friends and colleagues who have been doing the same thing, so have observed and experienced first-hand the hurdles and commonly made mistakes people make with property investing and flipping.
When I left the corporate world to start my own property business and enrolled in a property mentoring
programme. While this was great, I recognised that the property education industry hadnʼt tapped in to the most powerful resources that are at the heart of modern day successful businesses – people collaboration, and technology.
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By merging my industry experience with my passion for property, people and technology, I am proud to be the cofounder of MyProperties which has changed the way property investors and flippers go about their business.
Iʼd love you to come on an adventure with us where you work amongst people who are your equals, where we help and support you in your own journey and you can reciprocate and help others in developing their businesses and where we all continue to learn and grow together.
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My first house was in Glenfield (1986). “Mum and Dad pulled some strings to get us a house/land package. It was down the road from the new poo ponds and was just a house, on some poles, on a clay section. When we took out our loan interest rates were 18% and rapidly rose to 23%. We worked weekends building fences, a deck, sowing grass, paving the driveway and turning it into our home.”
Our leaky home project on the shores of Lake Rotoiti (2015). When everyone else saw leaky home, we saw the biggest opportunity of our investing careers. We purchased this gem that was 3rd generation owned and completely run down. Architect designed, complete with an 1860 roadhouse on the knoll, a wet shed and dry shed weʼre breathing life back in to this unique property and in 3 years have already doubled the value and our equity.
We acquired this one privately through a friend of a friend who was fed up with property. It was pretty ugly and we loved it! We converted it into 4 bedrooms + ensuite which took extra time and money, but we transformed it into a funky affordable first home for a family and made some good money in the process.
In more recent years weʼve been investing in commercial – a more technical proposition with plenty of scope for adding value and a lot of variety, not to mention great net yields if you know what youʼre doing!
THE INSPIRATION AND SUPPORT YOU’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR!
Penny Laybourn
Penny knows what its like to follow a dream and adventure into the unknown. She has traversed the globe and been a NZ Silver Scroll finalist for her music. Her creativity, love of saving buildings (especially heritage buildings), strong sense of community and programming skills are all put to great use as the cofounder of My Properties.
After many years in IT programming and solving the unsolvable, my IT skills have been put to perfect use developing the first version of our App (which is also a NZ first and as far as we know).
Its the only comprehensive software designed specifically for property flippers and investors – we needed it for ourselves, so it was pretty logical really. Iʼve continued to work with our super software developers to ensure our App runs as sweetly as my fully restored ʻ76 Honda 400 Four motorcycle!
And weʼve added another first, RenoTracker – our App for managing everything to do with renovating from building a budget to scheduling work and project management, to working out profit.
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When Iʼm not doing that Iʼm hanging out with our little dachshunds – running our own business makes it easy to have animals at work!
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My first house was in Was in New Lynn (1998). “I desperately wanted to buy in Kingsland and couldnʼt afford it. One morning on the train to work as I was reading the newspaper, I spotted a small ad with the heading “Park like grounds – $255,000”. It seemed like a long way out and a real bargain. It was doable on my own but I was quite fearful so talked a mate into going 50/50. It had a sleepout and a swimming pool and we had flatmates in to help pay the mortgage. I later bought my friend out and still own the property today.“
We got our first bach at Lake Rotoiti (2003) – luck was on our side with an agent who didnʼt always wait for listings to appear; she hunted out what we were looking for and came up with a gem that had been left unoccupied for 10 years or more with a house and the original bach on the site, both in need of a mountain of work – something we know pays off. This DIY renovation took a lot of weekends and late nights – plastering, painting, floor sanding, plumbing, building and transforming to get the house ready for holiday letting. We later added to this by purchasing the property next door a few years later.
We were working on a hold over the road and kept looking at this property – it was all boarded up. We tracked down the owner after literally working through a list of possible owners in the phone book and struck gold. The owner ended up selling us three houses. This one had been stripped of all its wiring and plumbing so the renovation was big but weʼd bought it at a great price and sold privately to a first home buyer, so there was plenty in it for everyone!
One of our flips that we transformed and sold to a first home buyer. We bought this privately after driving past daily on our way to another flip. It was vacant and no one was ever there except for this one day – seizing the moment we called in and owned it a week later. The reno included opening it up (with council consent), replacing windows and building new decks as well as completely gutting it. The renovation ran in around $60,000 with a tidy profit and a happy first home buyer at the end.
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